I’m writing on the last day of Summer, tomorrow will be September. Hundreds of thousands of us will spend the morning of the last day of summer punching and swiping their connected devices in the hope that one of them will get through to the Oasis ticket desk to secure up to four tickets for next summer’s gigs.

I will not be among them, not because I don’t enjoy Oasis’ great first two albums and bits and pieces that they’ve done since, but because I really have better things to do with my time and money. Like going to the Proms when you can see equally great music for £8.00 (no booking fee)  and you just need to rock up to the Albert Hall and walk in.

My kind of queue

My kind of queue involves hanging out with others and sharing stuff, not sitting on a laptop with phone in hand.  I want to walk inside and find my space like I can at most gigs. Seeing Springsteen last month I stood twenty yards from the stage and imagined I was on the spot where Paddy Madden fired Yeovil into the Championship.

As a musical experience  I rate Springsteen, Cave, the Rolling Stones , Morrissey and Peter Hook as highlights of the past five years. All were big gigs. But the gigs I’ve enjoyed the most have come from mates tipping off bands I’ve never heard of “Maisie Peters” – “Hamish Hawk” – “Jake Vaadeland” (well I am taking Jake on trust)

sic

If we are to have nostalgia , let’s make it immediate and fun -like Glesga and Hamish in a record store.

I have friends and colleagues who knock around Camden Square whose kids are mates with Gallagher kids, Liam and Noel knock around, get married, get divorced and change nappies. It’s a high octane middle age but it is just living. There is nothing so special about being in your fifties!

Which puts the great scramble for tickets into perspective. The counterparty to all this effort of ours is a couple of brothers struggling to make ends meet who have to go back on the road like the sad pensioner whose drawdown’s run out.

This podcast by Tom Browne says it rather better than I can,

I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen Oasis play. I think I did go to an unmemorable event way past their Knebworth prime and I went because I thought I ought to see them play before they died. Which they haven’t.

I can see that of their time and for those going through their latter teenage and college years, they could define you. But they have not got a body of work to match their idles the Beatles and their best live song, I am the Walrus, is in homage to another north western four-piece who are in a different league.

But really? Oasis when Paul Weller is still gigging? If you want nostalgia, tap into Weller’s musical heritage – the Kinks, the Who, the Yardbirds.  And I am simply lifting the lid of a pandora’s box of songs and performances that go back 70 years to the days when Andy and Derek and Con were growing up.

Oasis were and our , defining of a time – a very good time which we remember for good reasons. Along with Blur and Pulp and James and many others they defined the male sound of Britpop and there followed a great wave of magnificent female singers topped by Winehouse and then Adele.

And today we have Taylor Swift who is bigger even than the hype she creates , she sings to the hearts of the Swifties as Nick Cave sings to my heart and ear.

Next month, my son and I are going to see Nick Lowe in London. Best seats £60 September 24th.

Now I wouldn’t swap those tickets for Oasis! And it’s at some venue I’ve never been to – the London blinking Palladium.

Now how about worst seats at Wembley – £850 anyone?

why queue?