Incident at Virgin Festival overshadows release of Oasis’ new album

While the recent attack on Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher was bad — he broke three ribs after a 47-year-old man assaulted him on stage at Toronto’s Virgin Festival last month — bassist Andy Bell said things could have been worse.


“I saw Noel lying on the ground,” he says on the phone from his London home. “I thought he had been stabbed.”

At first Bell was in shock. He saw the fan leap at singer Liam Gallagher after knocking Noel down. Three bodyguards quickly tackled the suspect. Although the band finished the set, they had to cancel a number of tour dates — including ones in London, Ont., and Montreal — after they found out that the older Gallagher brother had broken bones.

Needless to say, Bell and the rest of the band aren’t too pleased they’ve had to stay at home while new record, Dig Out Your Soul, is hitting stores this week.

“We’re unbelievably angry about this,” he says. “It’s crazy. Right now we should be doing dates, but we’re not. This has thrown a huge bomb in the middle of our schedule. Apart from the fact it’s something you don’t do. You don’t attack a man from behind.”

Bell’s not sure what will happen to the attacker, and he hasn’t found out why Gallagher was hit, but the incident has made them rethink their large festival gigs. “This could have happened anywhere,” he says, adding that the band is not holding a grudge against Toronto. “The problem for us was that it was a festival. That’s the issue we’re blaming for this. It’s hard to say how we’ll address it, but there are professionals who are looking at this and finding out how we can make things safer.”

Although the band did finally resume touring this week in Liverpool, this setback has made it more difficult to promote the album. It’s too bad too as Dig Out Your Soul could be the band’s best effort since its mid-’90s heyday. The songs aren’t as rocking as What’s the Story Morning Glory, and they don’t deviate much from their familiar Beatles-esque pop, but for the first time in a while the band members sound like they are trying again.

It probably helped that every member contributed at least one track to the record. Bell is responsible for the upbeat rocker Nature of Reality, and while it’s one of the less Oasis-like tracks on the album — making it a refreshing addition to the band’s sound — it’s not the song the bassist would have picked for the record.

“If we were going for one track, I would have chosen a different one,” he says, pointing out that he actually wrote a number of tunes. “Noel sets the tone of the album, then he goes back through the 60 or so songs we’ve got in a collective pile and he pulls out things that suit his head space. So Nature made more sense with everything together.”

While the soft-spoken Bell has several more good tunes that might never see the light of day, he’s not upset — he just wants to get back on the road. “We’re trying to get in the zone again. The worst thing was preparing to be so active and then not doing anything. We all feel a bit out of sorts, but in terms of playing, the music sounds brilliant.”

source: metronews.ca

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