'I thought they were just another band'
Dave Fanning is recalling the first time he ever heard a hotly tipped new band from Manchester called Oasis.
It was April 1994 and the five-piece led by two saturnine looking brothers called Noel and Liam had just released their debut single, an extremely impressive opening gambit entitled Supersonic.
It was the start of something very, very big - but one Irish tasty maker didn't see it coming and he's the first to admit it.
"I thought they were just another band," says Fanning, who has seen plenty of 'just another bands' come and go over his fifty years as a DJ and music fanatic. "I didn't jump at it and say their first album is the greatest album ever made. I had no idea."
Funny how things turn out because starting at 6pm this Saturday on RTÉ Radio 1, the DJ and wireless veteran presents The Fanning Files: Oasis, a new three-part series looking back on his many meetings with the Mancunian super stars.
Over the course of three episodes to be aired ahead of the band's reunion shows at Croke Park, Fanning will revisit the interviews he did with the band and the solo Gallagher brothers over the years - starting in 1994 and going all the way to 2024.
"The first interview we did in the studio in 2fm in September 1994 just before the first album was released," Fanning recalls. "Bonehead and Noel did two live numbers - a very good version of Slide Away and the other was Live Forever, which Mojo magazine later put at No 1 in the top fifty Oasis songs ever."
Fanning was to meet Oasis many times over the next thirty years and Noel remains one the funniest and sharpest men he's ever met. "He is fantastic!" says Fanning. "He's quick, he's smart, he knows how to tell a good story and he knows how to slag the brother in a way that is really quite warm and nice.
"Liam is street smart and he's a bit mad but he's pretty cool but Noel is very together, very quick. He's well able to talk and he knows that he likes and he'll say it straight out."
Anyone who remembers what was going on in rock 'n' roll back in the early nineties will know the wild success of Oasis wasn't just down to Noel's talent for penning football terrace anthems with Slade-sized choruses.
"It was pretty obvious that it was going to happen," says Fanning. "It was perfect because Oasis were yobs! People were crying out for an in your face rock 'n' roll band. Oasis gave us that and maybe they were the last rock 'n' roll band.
"It's all about lads throwing their arms around each other. Does that mean I love it? Give me Nick Cave or even Blur any day . . . "
So, was he, to ask the question of the day back then, Oasis or Blur. "I would have been Blur."
And way back in 1994, was Dave Fanning, who turns 70 next year, mad fer it? "Ehhhh, no. I was probably too old to be mad for it," he laughs. "I didn't buy the right hat or walk the right way but I did enjoy all that. I always enjoy a movement - like Madchester and Grunge and Liverpool, a hundred years ago."
Of course, some might say that after two very good albums with Definitely Maybe and What's The Story (Morning Glory)?, Oasis very quickly calcified into dad rock bloat.
"One of the interviews we have on the series is from 1997 for their third album, Be Here Now, and Oasis are on top of the world, the biggest selling rock act in the world," recalls Fanning.
"And you can feel it - Be Here Now wasn't all that great, the songs are way too long, all the orchestra stuff is nonsensical, every song is six minutes long and they should be three minutes. You can see the overindulgence."
The Fanning Files: Oasis will include contributions from Liam and Noel Gallagher, Bonehead, Andy Bell, Alan McGee and the band's original drummer Tony McCarroll.
There will be stories, banter and anecdotes, including Noel's own story of why he walked away from it all at that Rock en Seine Paris gig back in '09.
And, of course, Fanning will be in Croke Park to witness Oasis' first Irish shows in 16 years on 16 and 17 of August.
""Yes, I'll be there but I'm not looking so forward to it like everybody else is with their arms around each other, drinking pints," he says.
"The thing is, Oasis don't put on a show. Look at Chris Martin, he really knows how to bring in the whole audience. Oasis do nothing! Your man stands there with his hands behind his back.
"I went to see that covers band No-asis and your man stands there with his hands behind his back but when Noel is doing his solo songs, he ambles over and headbutts him! And the place goes wild."
He adds, "Last Friday I went to the Purty Loft in Dun Laoghaire to see a David Bowie tribute act. Saturday and Sunday, I was at Billie Eilish. I also went to Coldplay in Croker last year - and they are for girls!"
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