Many titles have been given to preeminent bloke Noel Gallagher, and "enemy of the people" is certainly one of them.
While his brother Liam Gallagher is the one who has been known to tweet death threats, Noel has now detailed the time was apparently banned from China for life after a charity concert performance on June 7, 1997.
At the height of the Britpop group's fame, Oasis were invited to perform at a Tibetan Freedom Concert — a series of charity shows in support of Tibetan independence that took place between 1996 and 2001 — at Downing Stadium in Randall's Island, New York. The event was headlined Foo Fighters and Beastie Boys, and featured performances from the likes of Alanis Morissette, Radiohead, U2, Bjork and Blur.
For some reason, Noel was the only member of the band willing to take the stage that day. He performed solo between sets by Radiohead and U2, and felt like his segment lasted "about four hours," as he recently told The Daily Star.
"I walked out on stage in front of 50,000 people and as I walked out, I thought, 'Why have I agreed to do this? I'm not even the fucking singer. I've got a Marshall stack and I'm going to do 'Wonderwall' and 'Cast No Shadow,'" he recalled. It sounds very much like an "Anyway, here's 'Wonderwall'"-moment — perhaps one of the first in a movement that would sweep house parties for years to come.
But there proved to be even more dire consequences for the musician's little one-man show: in 2009, when Oasis had plotted to make stops in Beijing and Shanghai on tour for Dig Out Your Soul, the Chinese Ministry of Culture learned of Gallagher's appearance at the Tibetan Freedom Concert and deemed the band "unsuitable" to perform in the East Asian country. (Tibet has been under Chinese occupation and rule since 1951.)
"I am enemy of the people," Noel explained, adding: "I only found out I was banned when Oasis got invited to go to China."
He elaborated:
We'd agreed to go and all the paperwork came and you had to send through a list of your songs and the Chinese government sent you back a list of songs that weren't appropriate and we'd agreed to do all that. About a month before we were about to leave, I got a letter saying, "You lot can come, but you can't because of this thing you did for the Tibetan people." I'd forgot I'd even done it. I've got a letter somewhere from the Minister of the Interior saying, "You are an enemy of the people," or something like that. The rest [of the band] were invited with open arms.
You can watch the fateful performance below, wherein Noel tells the crowd: "The rest of the band are stuck in traffic."
Following in his singer-brother's footsteps, this particular Gallagher is gearing up to release a new album — the follow-up to the High Flying Birds' last full-length offering, 2017's Who Built the Moon? — and it apparently features a song inspired by Moby-Dick (and weed).
While his brother Liam Gallagher is the one who has been known to tweet death threats, Noel has now detailed the time was apparently banned from China for life after a charity concert performance on June 7, 1997.
At the height of the Britpop group's fame, Oasis were invited to perform at a Tibetan Freedom Concert — a series of charity shows in support of Tibetan independence that took place between 1996 and 2001 — at Downing Stadium in Randall's Island, New York. The event was headlined Foo Fighters and Beastie Boys, and featured performances from the likes of Alanis Morissette, Radiohead, U2, Bjork and Blur.
For some reason, Noel was the only member of the band willing to take the stage that day. He performed solo between sets by Radiohead and U2, and felt like his segment lasted "about four hours," as he recently told The Daily Star.
"I walked out on stage in front of 50,000 people and as I walked out, I thought, 'Why have I agreed to do this? I'm not even the fucking singer. I've got a Marshall stack and I'm going to do 'Wonderwall' and 'Cast No Shadow,'" he recalled. It sounds very much like an "Anyway, here's 'Wonderwall'"-moment — perhaps one of the first in a movement that would sweep house parties for years to come.
But there proved to be even more dire consequences for the musician's little one-man show: in 2009, when Oasis had plotted to make stops in Beijing and Shanghai on tour for Dig Out Your Soul, the Chinese Ministry of Culture learned of Gallagher's appearance at the Tibetan Freedom Concert and deemed the band "unsuitable" to perform in the East Asian country. (Tibet has been under Chinese occupation and rule since 1951.)
"I am enemy of the people," Noel explained, adding: "I only found out I was banned when Oasis got invited to go to China."
He elaborated:
We'd agreed to go and all the paperwork came and you had to send through a list of your songs and the Chinese government sent you back a list of songs that weren't appropriate and we'd agreed to do all that. About a month before we were about to leave, I got a letter saying, "You lot can come, but you can't because of this thing you did for the Tibetan people." I'd forgot I'd even done it. I've got a letter somewhere from the Minister of the Interior saying, "You are an enemy of the people," or something like that. The rest [of the band] were invited with open arms.
You can watch the fateful performance below, wherein Noel tells the crowd: "The rest of the band are stuck in traffic."
Following in his singer-brother's footsteps, this particular Gallagher is gearing up to release a new album — the follow-up to the High Flying Birds' last full-length offering, 2017's Who Built the Moon? — and it apparently features a song inspired by Moby-Dick (and weed).