Oasis at Irvine Beach
Today and tomorrow sees the 25th anniversary of unarguably the biggest rock shows Irvine has ever staged. The 14th and 15th of July 1995 was when Oasis rolled into town to play their earth-shattering Beach Park shows. The band were surfing the zeitgeist, with at the time the fastest-selling debut album ever released under their belt and a second, multi-platinum monster of an album about to be unwrapped by an expectant public. They could do no wrong and, a month after being the band of the festival at Glastonbury, they chose (with major input from Willie Freckleton) to play a weekend in Irvine. It was all very exciting.
Freckfest’s Craig Smart remembers it well.
“That’s what Willie was great at – making these type of events happen, being able to convince promoters and the council that Irvine was the location for big concerts. His people skills were phenomenal – he would enthuse anyone he came in contact with. I think if it had been anyone else, promoters Regular Music and CPL would have gone elsewhere.”
Save the ‘Some Might Say’ single, fans had yet to hear any of the band’s new material, but the new songs were warmly received. ‘Roll With It’, a month away from release and not yet in battle for Britpop bragging rights against Blur’s ‘Country House’ was placed somewhere mid-set amongst the more familiar songs. ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ was played live for the first time (in our home town!) and a misty-eyed audience fell to their knees for a skyscraping anthem of Beatles proportions, made all the more pertinent by Noel playing the song with one of George Harrison’s plectrums.
If, like many, you attended both nights, by the Saturday performance these new songs were greeted like old friends. I have a very vivid memory of going to The Attic above The Kings after the Saturday show and hearing a group of folk bouncing into the queue singing the chorus to ‘Hello’, a track that wouldn’t see the light of day until the album release in October.
The gig meant something to people. The ticket was the hottest in the land and there are stories of unlucky fans holding their own impromptu listening parties on Irvine Moor, where the music was blown loudly and clearly by the wind from the harbour. It was great to see our town flooded with music fans from across the country. Hotels, pubs, restaurants and supermarkets all saw a spike in profits. Local Our Price stores stocked up on the band’s back catalogue of singles and promoted them heavily. They too saw a marked increase in sales over the event weekend, the stellar line-up of support acts (Cast, Ocean Colour Scene and The Verve – something of an era-defining bill when you look at it through the benefit of hindsight) contributing greatly to the ringing tills. In short, the shows were a brilliant thing for our town.
“Shall we do this again?” asked Noel Gallagher from the stage. “Same time next year? Write to your local MP and demand it!”
Oasis never did come back the next year. A mere 12 months later, they were the biggest music act on the planet and would play to a quarter of a million people at Knebworth. Those Irvine shows captured the band perfectly in a moment in time, as they moved up a league from mere ‘indie’ band to an act that your gran would be familiar with. It’s perhaps difficult nowadays to appreciate just how massive Oasis were about to become at the time, which makes those Irvine shows all the more special.
“When I think back to what was held in the Beach Park area over the space of 6 weeks or so – Rock on the Watter with approx 3000 people, the Radio One Roadshow with 20,000 people, the Harbour Festival with in excess of 40,000 visitors and the 12,000 over the two days Oasis were here,” recalls Craig Smart, “it’s pretty impressive, not just in the amount of people involved but the programme itself. How do you top that?”
To date, we never have topped those two Oasis shows. Few people have. Just ask Noel the next time you bump into him. He’s gone on record as saying the Saturday night in Irvine was one of the top 3 Oasis shows ever. And he should know, he’s been to more than a few of them.
What are your memories of the shows? Leave us a comment in the box below. Thanks!
