Grammy Award-winning director Jake Scott’s new documentary, Oasis Knebworth 1996 set to be screened in cinemas worldwide from September 23. It tells the story of the legendary shows through the eyes of the band and the fans who were there including extensive and never before seen archive concert footage over both nights.
Oasis ‘two super-gigs at Knebworth were undoubtedly the pinnacle of Liam, Noel, Bonehead, Guigsy and Alan White’s career as 250,000 mad-for-it fans packed into the Hertfordshire park 25 years ago.
Get to see footage of the band sound checking
The story of the weekend is told via archive video from every angle. There’s even a person perspective of buses driving fans into the grounds of Knebworth House. Ahead of the mammoth double header, though, the viewer is treated to footage of Liam racing about in a golf buggy backstage.
Oasis were at their best live during the Britpop era
From 1994-1996, anyone who caught Oasis saw some of their greatest performances be it in a sweaty tiny venue such as the Buckley Tivoli in North Wales or at giant football stadiums like Maine Road just months before Knebworth. That song in particular really comes across and that group of songs because there were three ballads in a row at both shows (‘Cast No Shadow’, ‘Wonderwall’, ‘The Masterplan’) it’s very, very evident how good they were and how well rehearsed they were. Noel said, ‘We could do it standing on our head by the time we got up there’. And you get that from the performance.”
Liam Gallagher isn’t involved much
Liam is a huge presence on stage in the doc but unlike Noel and Bonehead who narrate the film, he gives little in the way of new interviews. “Honestly, I think it was just Liam’s personal preference,” Scott explains. “As I understood it, he felt the film spoke for itself. Noel and Bonehead offered a lot, Liam wasn’t gonna offer much more. He’s a different person to Noel. He’s a performer and you find this with a lot of actors, they don’t want the distraction of anything else. They want to be in the present moment. And I wonder if it’s a bit of that really, a bit of artistic integrity. ‘I don’t want to remember and go back. I’m doing my tour right now and I wanna focus on that.’”
You won’t spot any camera phones in the crowd
“You can go on about technology and all that stuff but we are distracted now,” Scott says. “That was actually partly the intention of the way we told the story, to prove that point. The intention of the film was to put you there rather than dropping in and out of it with some on-camera accounts with people sitting in their front room now in their mid to late forties. It was important, I think, to present it to new ears and new eyes. And to try and find ways for kids like my 16-year-old daughter to identify with it as well.”
John Squire knocks ‘Champagne Supernova’ out of the park
They were once in a generation shows without his involvement, but when The Stone Roses axeman popped on stage for a stunning rendition of the ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?’ closer, the crowd went bonkers. “It’s blinding. It’s absolutely blinding. It’s rock and roll at its absolute best that performance of ‘Champagne Supernova’ and it restores your faith in guitar bands,” Scott gushes.
The trailer of ‘Oasis Knebworth 1996’ documentary:
