Noel vs Liam: The best insults from the Gallaghers' decades-long feud

Telegraph

20 hours ago

Some might say the return of Oasis is the best thing to happen to rock 'n roll in ages. Others will tell you the reconciliation of perpetually feuding brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher is a musical powder-keg waiting to go off. As they prepare to take to the stage in Cardiff on Friday night, here's a timeline of their all-time greatest hits – by which we mean the many verbal and physical punch-ups they've been embroiled in down the decades.
September 1994
It all seemed like harmless brotherly bickering until one showcase gig at the Whiskey A Go Go in LA in September 1994 in support of Definitely Maybe, when the allegedly 'refreshed' band deliver a shambolic set that ended when Liam changes the words of Live Forever to 'maybe I don't really wanna know why you pick your nose', insults the audience and hit Noel on the head with his tambourine.
Noel promptly quits the tour and goes AWOL in San Francisco for several days, considering splitting the band until a fan talks him round. He returns to the band for later shows in the tour and would pen classic B-side Talk Tonight about the incident, but resentment clearly festers.
May/June 1995
It is Noel's turn to attack Liam, this time with a cricket bat when Liam invites a pub full of new best mates back to the studio to party during the recording sessions for (What's The Story) Morning Glory.
November 1995
A 14-minute recording of Liam and Noel bickering during an interview is released as Wibling Rivalry and reaches 52 in the charts. The 'single' is put out by indie label, Fierce Panda, who fret about provoking the wrath of the Gallaghers. 'We were quite worried,' said the label's Simon Williams. 'Then I got a call from Sony's lawyers and I thought, 'Uh-oh, this is it!' But they just said they loved it and asked me to send them a copy. And Noel was great about it.'
August 1996
Liam pulls out of a recording of MTV Unplugged at the Royal Festival Hall claiming to have laryngitis. However he sounds in fine voice while heckling the Noel-fronted band from the balcony during the set. When he tries to join the band onstage for a re-run of their opening song, Noel unceremoniously tells him where to go, and it isn't behind the microphone.
On the eve of a 1996 US tour, Liam refuses to board the flight to Chicago. He claims he needed to buy a house for his then-fiancee Patsy Kensit to live in: 'I can't go looking for a house in America while I'm trying to perform to silly f----ing yanks,' he was quoted as saying.
He joins the band in America three days later, only to cause uproar by swearing and spitting at an MTV Awards show. The tour is cancelled two weeks in when Noel ditches the remaining date and flies back to the UK; he will later claim the antics 'killed [Oasis] stone dead in America'.
July 2000
With a gig cancelled due to drummer Alan White hurting his arm, Oasis set to drinking their way through an unexpected day off. Liam's drunken comments about his ongoing divorce from Kensit turned into a free-for-all of abuse that overstep the mark. When Liam questions the legitimacy of Noel's daughter Anaïs, Noel jumps on him, raining punches and splitting his brother's lip. Again, Noel quits the tour; again the band eventually reconciles.
But this is one barb that sticks deep – as late as 2005 Noel tells Q magazine, 'I've never forgiven him because he's never apologised…He's my brother, but he's at arm's length until he apologises for what he's done.'
September 2002
Liam throws what Noel described as a 'diva fit' and storms offstage in Japan. The singer has, in fact, been struggling with vocal issues and leaves after six songs – with vocal issues having already led to the postponement of a show in Spain.
October 2005
Liam gives a typically punchy interview to Spin magazine, in which he brags about easily manipulating his brother. 'I can read him and I can f---ing play him like a slightly disused arcade game,' he says. 'I can make him make decisions that he thinks are his but really they're mine. Without fighting. It's an art I've learnt.'
August 2007
Oasis start recording their final studio LP, Dig Out Your Soul, at Abbey Road in London. There are tensions in the studio, with Liam unhappy with the prominence of keyboards on Noel's new songs. He temporarily quits the sessions halfway through to marry Nicole Appleton, without telling Noel. The bad blood continues on the press tour for the record, with Noel saying they rarely socialised. 'I don't like Liam,' he says – claiming Liam gets nasty when he's been drinking. 'He's rude, arrogant, intimidating, and lazy. He's the angriest man you'll ever meet. He's like a man with a fork in a world of soup.'
August 2009
The great rupture. Backstage in Paris at the Rock en Seine festival, Noel decides he's had enough, when another verbal altercation culminates in Liam wielding Noel's guitar 'like an axe'.
'He was quite violent,' Noel says. 'At that point there was no physical violence but there was a lot of World Wrestling Federation stuff. It was an unnecessarily violent act and he nearly took my face off.'
Noel breaks the news via Oasis website. 'It's with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight,' he writes. 'People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.'
Liam rejects claims that his drinking caused the rift. 'That was my behaviour since day one, and [Noel's]. That's what made Oasis what it was,' he said. 'I wasn't any different, but all of a sudden, he's turned into Ronan Keating or some soft c---, going: 'We can't have that behaviour.''
February 2010
The Brit Awards see Oasis's (What's the Story) Morning Glory? named the best British album of the previous 30 years. The hope is that the brothers might reconcile at the event. Instead, Liam walks to the podium on his own and says: 'Listen, kids. I wanna thank Bonehead, Guigs, Alan White, the best fans in the f---ing world. Live Forever!' Having thanked everyone except his brother, he throws the mic – and the award – into the crowd.
June 2011
Noel marries his long-term girlfriend, Sara MacDonald. Liam is not invited and instead goes off to tour America with his new band, Beady Eye. He says he wasn't invited to Noel's nuptials because he had not asked his brother to his previous knot-tying. 'He goes on about how he wasn't invited to my wedding. No one was at my wedding but [the bride's] mum and my mum. Get over it, mate.'
July 2011
Noel claims that Oasis cancelled a V Festival headliner in 2009 because Liam was hungover, though the reason given at the time was that the singer had laryngitis. Liam sues demanding an apology. 'The truth is I had laryngitis, which Noel was made fully aware of that morning, diagnosed by a doctor.' Noel offers a mea culpa and the case is dropped.
August 2011
Liam slams Noel's High-Flying Birds project. 'Listen, our kid's a mouthy f---- too. He said we had a year to come up with a band name and came up with Beady Eye. He had three and came up with the High Flying Turds. I don't know who dressed him but he looks like something out of Westlife.'
December 2011
Liam is ambivalent about an Oasis reunion top mark the 20th anniversary of Morning Glory in 2015. 'I'd rather eat my own s---than be in a band with him again. He's a miserable little f--- … If the fans want it, though, I'd do it.'
June 2012
Hope of a reconciliation gather pace after it is revealed that the bothers are in contact at Christmas. But Noel is quick to quash the speculation. 'I haven't been in touch. I last texted him at Christmas after the City match. I don't think it's gonna happen. It would be great for everyone else except me … I don't think anyone is pushing for a reunion either. Nobody ever brings it up in any seriousness; I mean, Liam does publicly, but he says a lot of things publicly. I wouldn't take anything he says seriously.'
June 2013
Liam says he's open to a reunion – and claims money wouldn't even be an issue. This is presumably before he is introduced to the lucrative concept of 'dynamic pricing'.'We could bury the hatchet for a quick lap of honour,' he says. 'I'd do it for nowt, but if someone's going to drop a load of f---ing money, I'd do it for that too … [Then] I'd still go back to Beady Eye and Noel would go back to his thing.'
October 2014
A tragedy for rock music when Liam's Beady Eye breaks up. Noel expresses his condolences – though more for Liam's bandmates than his brother. 'I'm very f---ing sad about Beady Eye, because I know they really wanted to make it work. I wanted it to work for them. I was out with [Beady Eye guitarist] Gem Archer the other night. The vibe I'm getting is that it was a shock, although not completely surprising.'
March 2015
Liam embarks on a new career of being a bit of wag on Twitter. He also hints at a reconciliation when posting a picture of him wearing a High Flying Birds backstage pass, writing that he is 'keeping it in the family'.
May 2015
Noel claims Liam is stoking rumours of an Oasis reunion – and questions the veracity of Liam's High Flying Birds tweet. 'It wasn't his pass. He wasn't there. It was my other brother's pass. If he'd had been at one of my gigs, you would've known about it because he'd have made his way on stage and started acting like a f---ing gobs----. He's being a bit disingenuous to Oasis fans in the sense that he always gets their hopes up.'
Liam is soon tapping out a reply: 'I see Noel Katie Hopkins Gallagher is talking out of his slack arse again go and polish your SAXAPHONE Ha ha.'
May 2016
It is increasingly clear that Liam is up for an Oasis reunion – but that Noel is holding out, to his brother's frustration. To get his own back, Liam starts posting images of Noel claiming he looks like a potato.
Potato pic.twitter.com/naIX8TpppC
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) May 24, 2016
October 2016
At the premiere of a documentary about the band, Supersonic, Liam criticises Noel for not gracing the red carpet. 'Noel won't be here. He's in one of his really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really big houses,' he says. 'Probably eating tofu while having a face peel. Isn't that right, man of the people?'
June 2017
Following the Manchester Arena bombing, the city comes together to heal at the One Love Manchester concert. But the spirit of love and support does not seem to have reached the Gallaghers. While Liam turns up and sings Oasis's Live Forever with Coldplay, Noel stays away – leading to jibes from his sibling. 'Noel's out of the f---ing country weren't we all love get on a f---ing plane and play your tunes for the kids you sad f---.'
Noel's reply is that he wasn't asked to perform. 'Young Mancunians, young music fans, were slaughtered, and he, twice, takes it somewhere to be about him. He needs to see somebody.' Liam claims his brother is bending the truth: 'I got proof you were asked and declined.'
November 2017
Liam asks fans to join him onstage in London to take part in a potato-peeling session in honour of his bother.
Im looking for somebody to peel some spuds live on stage tnight at this gig in Bethnal Green must have own peeler as you were LG x
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) November 7, 2017
July 2018
When Noel plays a 'no-alcohol' show at Edinburgh Castle, Liam is quick to comment. 'I forgive you now let's get the BIG O back together and stop f---ing about the drinks are on me LG x'. When Noel stays silent, Liam tweets: 'I'll take that as a NO then.'
July 2019
The fallout from the One Love row continues. Asked if she would watch Liam sing at Glastonbury, Noel's wife, Sara MacDonald, calls Liam a 'fat t--t doing his tribute act'. Later, Noel posts a screenshot of a message Liam sent to Noel's daughter, Anaïs, that reads, 'tell your step mam to be very careful'.
Noel isn't having it. 'So you're sending threatening messages via my teenage daughter now are you?' he says on social media. 'You always were good at intimidating women though eh?' Liam says sorry, writing 'My sincere apologies to my beautiful mum Peggy and my lovely niece Anaïs for getting caught up in all of this childish behaviour I love you both dearly'.
pic.twitter.com/2U5q5gRLF9
— Noel Gallagher (@NoelGallagher) July 3, 2019
August 2019
The row about Liam contacting Anaïs drags on.'That's not the first time he's sent texts to my daughter, or left threatening phone calls on my wife's answering machine,' Noel tells an interviewer. 'So when he's threatening my wife via my teenage daughter, I'm thinking, you know, if you weren't a rock star, if you were just an uncle who worked in a garage, you'd be getting a visit from the police. But because you're a rockstar, wahey, you get away with that s--t.'
Noel adds he isn't one to let bygones be bygones – making an Oasis reunion unlikely. 'Because I've got one fatal flaw in my otherwise perfect makeup as a human being, which is I don't forgive people. Once you start texting my children – and his two sons have been going for her, too – and legitimise my wife being bullied on the internet, where she has to shut down Instagram accounts because of the vile s--t being written about her and my daughter, then it ain't happening.'
April 2020
Noel releases a demo of Oasis's Don't Stop – but it lacks either Liam's vocals or Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs' guitar. Liam takes issue,'Oi tofu boy if your gonna release old demos make sure im singing on it and boneheads playing guitar on it if not it's not worth a w--k'.
May 2021
Noel tells Jonathan Ross he wouldn't reform Oasis for all the money in the world and denies turning down a £100 million offer to put the band back together. 'There isn't £100m in the music business, right, between all of us … If anybody wants to offer me £100m now, I'll say it now, I'll do it. I'll do it for £100m.' Liam stick his oar in, tweeting 'I'd do it for FREE'.
June 2021
Noel takes part in a Reddit Ask Me Anything Q&A session, only to be faced with the following punctuation-free question from his brother: 'Why you such a massive c---'.
June 2023
Noel again rules out an Oasis reunion, when talking to Rolling Stone. He goes on to compare Liam to Puss in Boots from Shrek. 'I know for a fact he doesn't want it either, but he likes to paint this picture of, you know, this little f---ing guy who's sitting with his suitcase packed by the door, you know, like the little f---ing cat from f---ing Shrek, you know, the little f---ing Spanish cat with these big f---ing teary eyes. 'I'm [gonna] go and do it now for you fans. I love you.' It's like, well, f---ing call me then. And he hasn't called me. And until he does, it's f---ing going nowhere.'
January 2024
Nobody knows it but an Oasis reunion will be announced in just a few months. Yet the prospects of a reconciliation appear slimmer than ever, with Liam still stewing about that fateful 2009 gig in Paris.
'They threw me under the f---ing bus. All my life caved in,' he tells journalists. 'There were 40 or 50 people working for Oasis. All of a sudden, everyone was out of a job. Meanwhile, he's off with his guitar and his wife, having a lovely time … I know I've been humbled. And thank f--- for it because it's made me a better person. But he's not. He's still going round thinking he's the man, but we'll see.'
August 2024
I never did like that word FORMER
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) August 25, 2024
There is shock and delight – mostly shock – when Liam hints at a reunion. 'I never did like that word FORMER,' he tweets. Oasis fans everywhere go into meltdown. It can't really be happening, can it? It can.