That first Oasis summer, 30 years ago, was a rush, a high, a hit. Three singles landed in four months, with giddy titles: “Supersonic” in April, “Shakermaker” in June and “Live Forever” in early August, just after school was out for summer. The album Definitely Maybe followed, its title a little more tentative, just before school started back.
I was 16, and I wore their T-shirt for my first day of tertiary college, their logo my armour. Oasis were very different to other working-class bands in 1994. While the Manic Street Preachers delved into poetry and philosophy and Suede into darkness and danger, Oasis sang about self-actualisation (“I need to be myself/I can’t be no one else”), manifesting success (“Tonight I’m a rock ’n’ roll star”), and a desperate desire for reinvention (“The way I feel is oh so new to me”).
They were on their uppers and looking up, all class-A cockiness. A new British confidence was also bristling in the air. Tony Blair won the Labour leadership election in July, arriving just as quirky, British indie bands such as Blur and Pulp were landing high in the charts.
Oasis arrived in the middle of them all, with a logo that showed a Union Jack as a psychedelic swirl. A few years after Manchester was the centre of the British rave scene, their look was similarly unromantic, uncompromising and thrilling. On their first NME cover in June 1994, frontman Liam stared at the lens, all heavy lids and long lashes, his mouth set in a .