NOEL ON PLAYING LIVE

It's not all been about Noelrock, has it?
"Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Dreadzone - it's not got anything to do with rock, has it. Or Noel. You know, if it was down to the people in the band, they'd have Cast, The Charlatans, Ocean Colour Scene and all that type of bands on. I'm like, There is 125,000 people going to be there - people who like Oasis are actually into dance music. I was stood on the side of the stage when The Prodigy was on and the whole fucking field was going apeshit, right, so I was going to our kid, Told ya! He's like, 'S fucking crap! But it's all about the kids. Imagine you're 14 and yesterday was your first concert... I had to fucking sit through The Damned in 1979 which seemed alright at the time..."

This must be the last British gig for ages. Where next?
"Well, this is Morning Glory's last stand in Britain now, because we're gonna be doing our album. It'll be the last time you hear the likes of Hello and... (thinks) Fuckin' 'ell, the rest of 'em are all singles, aren't they? We play for two hours now. That's ten singles, and about five fuckin' B-sides that should've been singles. I've got about 15 songs for the new album, so you know, I'm not playing onstage for three hours, it's bad for me back, man. What do you do? All you can do is sit and laugh at it. We're laughing our heads off. We don't know what to do anymore. Where do you go? Sooner or later it's gonna get like that in America... It's just mental. "The one thing is, you can't ask for advice off anyone who's been there before, because no-one has. Apart from fucking Dave Gilmour and that, but I'm not going to ask him. You know, I've got a few things to say to Phil Collins, but asking for advice wouldn't be fucking one of them. No-one's been this big, not even The Beatles.

Them and the Stones - they just didn't play for three years. That won't happen, will it?
"No, fuck that. We like doing it too much, you know what I mean? We'd love to go back and do smaller gigs, but then, small gig now is like Earls Court, 20,000... We did a gig in Stockholm the other day, with The Bluetones supporting us. It was outdoors, 18,000 people there, a dirty great big fuck-off field with a lake at the back of it. The Bluetones were like, Fuckin' 'ell, look at all them people, and we were like, (shrugs) Huh, 18,000, that's nothing, my friend! We all walked on nonchalant as fuck like that (picks up imaginary guitar, strums out opening chords with ennui). Played for two hours and got off like it never happened, you know what I mean?"

Loch Lomond started off under a cloud. The Charlatans had to pull out because of Rob Collins' death. Then a roadie died on the site. Were you worried that these four gigs might turn out to be your Altamont?
"The first night, I'd seen the geezer get killed that day which put a big downer on it for me, obviously. I turned up early and I was just jamming away onstage. There was this articulated lorry no further away than from here to where that fence is - 50, 60 foot away. This geezer was doing something at the back of the lorry, and then this forklift truck was reversing up towards him. And I thought, That bloke better get out the way in a minute. And it just went (smacks hands together). He just fell over. I thought, he'll get up in a minute, then the ambulance came and they put a cover over him. The gig wasn't that important after that. Before the gig, I got interviewed by the police for about four hours. I'm supposed to be going onstage to play to 40,000 people, and I could hear the Manics playing outside, and the bloke's going, Well, was the driver looking? Not the best way to prepare, but you know, shit happens. (long pause) But Altamont, that's a bit over the fucking top. It's not as if it was done by Hell's Angels, or we were all wearing spandex trousers and fucking capes or anything..."