Rob the Concert Guy

I was 15 years old and I had won two general admission tickets to see Oasis in Providence, RI from a local radio station that is no more (RIP 99.7 X). While I’ve always mostly been a hard rock/metal fan, I always loved Oasis. From the first time I heard Live Forever I really liked that band. This tour was the What’s the Story Morning Glory tour and the band was riding high on the huge success of the single Wonderwall and not yet at the arena or stadium level of popularity in the US.

I was pretty excited to win those tickets and looking forward to attending the show. My parents were less than thrilled. I didn’t have a license yet and Providence was a 45-minute drive “into the city.” When you grow up in Rhode Island, nothing you need is further than 15 minutes away, so 45 minutes into the “scary city” was a big deal. But somehow, I talked my parents into letting me go and even driving me there. But there was a catch. The night of the show was a school night and I was told that “you will get up in the morning and go to school regardless of what time you get home. If you don’t get up and out the door on time, this will be your last concert until you’re 18.” Message received!

March 10, 1996 at the Strand Theater in Providence, RI. My parents made the “long” drive and dropped me off with Ryan (whose parents weren’t too excited about the “big city” either) in front of the club. They drove away, and we waited in line with the crowd. I should mention that when I won the tickets, the DJ told me that all the tickets they give away were marked as either “all ages” or “18+” events but this one didn’t specify. He warned me that I may not be able to get in. I was a bit nervous about this while waiting in line because we looked to be the two youngest people there. The doors opened at 7:30 p.m. and luckily, we headed in without any roadblocks. Since we had never been to a club like this before, we just walked down to the stage, trying to get as close as possible, and waited to see what we were in store for.

The Strand, which thankfully still exists today, is a larger club, but a club nonetheless. The capacity is under 1600 people I believe, and that includes a big balcony area. So, this was a pretty small venue to see a band that was soon to be so massive. At the time, the venue still had a theater vibe, and I recall the main floor still sloping like a theater would so that each row of seats is slightly higher than the row in front of it. The seats had long been removed, but the floor still sloped and was really annoying to stand on. This made me think twice about many Strand shows in the future until it was finally remodeled.

I wish I could remember who the opening band was, but c’mon, this was over 25 years ago! I do recall that they were decent though. They didn’t suck like many, many others I’ve had to sit through over the years; or maybe I just didn’t know any better as an excited youngster. I also wish I could remember Oasis’ set list too. But sadly, I don’t although it’s probably online somewhere. I do know that they played (What’s the Story) Morning Glory and some other tracks off that album.

The show was exciting though. These were still the days of MTV when you knew what rock stars looked like and the same band ruled the charts for weeks. I was 20 feet away from Oasis! How cool was that for a 15-year-old? These weren’t fake YouTube celebrities like the youth swoons over today. These were rockstars! These guys were the Beatles of my generation (briefly).

About 40 minutes into the show, the band left the stage and then Noel Gallagher came back out with an acoustic guitar and did a solo version of Wonderwall. At this point in time, Wonderwall was ALL OVER the radio. This was their big hit. This was the IT song on alternative radio at the time. About halfway into the performance, some douche in the crowd thought “hey. I’ll take off my shoe/boot and throw it.” He followed through on his bright idea and hit Noel’s guitar, just inches away from his hand. It wasn’t a light toss either. It made quite the thud, and had it hit his hand, that could have been a tour ending hit.

Noel looked down, realized what happened, looked annoyed, and just got up and left. A couple minutes later, Liam Gallagher came out and started ripping into the crowd. With his heavy British accent, it was hard to understand what he was saying. But part of what I do remember is that he said they still had a bunch of songs to play, including Live Forever (one of my favorites), we were all assholes, and they were leaving. And they did leave. Show over. I called my folks who had only been home for a short time to come back and get us well before the agreed upon pickup time. What I never understood was why didn’t the crowd kick that guys ass? He must’ve been walking around with only one shoe and couldn’t have been hard to find. Or was security so poor that he had walked in with an extra show for the occasion? I guess I’ll never know unless he reads this and reaches out.

What gives Ryan and me a laugh about this show years later, is that Oasis has mentioned this show a few times in various interviews. It’s usually a quick “someone threw a boot at us” but it’s enough to make us chuckle. And to my knowledge (without doing any intense research) I don’t think Oasis has ever performed in RI since this incident. Am I wrong? Years later in 2017, Liam Gallagher was scheduled to play Boston, MA. He had a new solo album and his set lists were a nice mix of Oasis and the new solo album. I got my tickets and was going to go with my friend Rob (Ryan couldn’t make it with his work schedule). I was finally going to get a full-length Oasis-like show! Well, it turned out that Liam couldn’t make it either. He got sick, the show got postponed, and then eventually canceled. Sigh. Here’s to 2025!