Oasis, like most people, don’t enjoy having their picture taken. The only unsolicited Oasis photographs we get in magazines are grainy paparazzi jobs, wherein one or the other of the Gallagher brothers, obviously on his way to the pub or corner shop, is memorably captured giving a two-finger salute to the lensman.
In the circumstances, a fair reaction, but as anyone who’s ever been to a wedding will testify, the act of posing for the camera is usually made all the more uncomfortable by its operators incessant prattle about light meters and shutter speeds. Imagine having to put up with that for a whole afternoon!
Faced with a cover shoot for America’s most prestigious Rolling Stone magazine, Liam and Noel notoriously refused to tolerate such behavior. Pitifully hungover, they asked a representative from the magazine why it was all taking so long. She told them their cover shots always take eight hours – for example, when Pearl Jam did it… The brothers stood for precisely eight more minutes, kicked over a few chairs and departed.
Jill Furmanovsky took her first pictures of Oasis at a gig at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in December 1994. She’d been a highly respected freelance rock photographer throughout the 70s and 80s, but as music became more stylised and remote from its audience, she increasingly lost interest. She was however, compiling a book of work she called The Moment, and needed a current band to bookend her own potted history of rock. Her friend Daniela Soave suggested she take a look at Oasis.
“I found them very peculiar at the gig” Jill remembers now. “There was a very exciting atmosphere before it even started. They came onstage and Liam just stood there and actually sat down on the drum riser between numbers looking bored, and yet the level of excitement generated was so extraordinary. I couldn’t really get my head around it, but I was excited by the chemistry. I was very excited to shoot it, and I still remember thinking, “Well, this is a bit of a challenge because nothing’s happening here. Or rather, something’s happening which is suppressed”. I got quite inspired to show suppressed energy in the pictures”.
Jill sent the pictures to Oasis’ record company and management. Two weeks later, she was asked to go to America with them. For a while, Noel famously thought she was part of the catering staff. He barely noticed that Jill was taking his picture, and that was a very good thing.
Perhaps aware that the band’s volatile chemistry might not hold firm for too long, Noel was keen that the band’s every career move be documented. A fervent fan of The Beatles, and much more, he clearly understood the power of not so much image as imagery, in the shaping of rock dreams. A photographer who could be readily mistaken as a tea lady was just the ticket.
Jill was hired, on an unofficially official non-contract basis. She has followed the band’s rise from the top to supernova status. Swanning around backstage with U2 or Burt Bacharach, Noel will introduce her as “our photographer”. Far from hogging the band for herself, Jill encourages the band to do sessions with other photographers, to try different formulas.
From her own special vantage point, Jill has watched Oasis mushroom from a handful petulant, of highly talented musicians into the focus of the biggest cultural phenomenon that has been witnessed in years. She’s also aware of how they are misappropriated by the tabloid press and forced into an artless, empty circus of stardom.
“These are all good reasons to make an event for the exhibition” she points out, “to make an artistic contribution to the whole thing, a celebration of visual art.”
H/T - Gallery of Photography
Rockarchive founder, Jill Furmanovsky is a British photographer who has documented iconic rock musicians and bands from Pink Floyd to Oasis.
This was taken on the first Oasis American tour. Twin benches on the boardwalk were ideal for this back-to-back portrait of the brothers
Terrible vibes between Noel and Liam produced a wonderful set of pictures. Liam drunk, Noel thoroughly fed up, but the session continued.
George Martin was involved in the making of a TV documentary about Air Studios while Oasis were recording there
Rehearsals at the Music Bank, a regular haunt, would see Liam take pleasure in giving his famous two finger salute to trains speeding past
This was taken in Schipol Airport while we waited for the luggage. I rounded them up and asked them to sit on the edge of the conveyor belt.
At the time of Wonderwall Oasis not only sounded like The Beatles they looked like them too.
Oasis were supporting U2 in America. I think this is one of the best live images I've ever taken.
This was taken during a break in filming the Oasis Wonderwall video.
This was taken during a break in filming the Oasis Wonderwall video in September 1995.
Liam downs a pint while Noel watches and waits. That sums up their working relationship!
Noel recalls "Maine Road was where we all used to go as kids. So I was standing there, trying to make sure I never forgot this moment"
"To wear your woman's white cable knit sweater in front of a crowd of 125,000 takes some guts but Liam wore it with a swagger" Noel said
Johnny Marr had given Noel one of his guitars in the early days when he was broke. Now he was able to buy any guitar that took his fancy
Taken at a full lighting and sound dress rehearsal. Liam is sitting cross-legged on the floor listening intently to his favourite band
Part of a cover shoot for Q Magazine shot backstage at The Point Dublin in March 1996 before the gig.
"I love to shoot musicians in hotel rooms, bland furniture, bland pictures on the wall - so much part of the lifestyle of a rock musician."
Taken on the video shoot for one of Noel Gallagher's greatest songs 'Wonderwall' in September 1995. A beam of evening light hits the spot.
Terrible vibes between Noel and Liam produced a wonderful set of pictures. Taken in Paris in November 1995.
Noel Gallagher of Oasis, with his signature Union Jack guitar taken at NEC in Birmingham in 1996
Noel & Liam Gallager at Air Studios, London in 1997. This image has been used as poster art for the 2016 Oasis exhibition 'Chasing the Sun'
Noel and Liam take a break from recording in a pub near Abbey Road. The atmosphere between them had been tense in the preceding weeks
I was asked to shoot a band session at Abbey Road, about a month after the media furore that was going on at the time.
Liam wearing the famous brown check coat that never seemed to come off during the tour and watching the sound-check intently as was his way.
This was the second day of a 2-day press shoot for the release of Be Here Now. It was the day Tony Blair became Prime Minister