It’s worse than you think, and I might have to watch it
Noel's recollection:
"The day of the performance, Liam hadn't turned up and there were rumours that he'd been out drinking for a couple of days... and nobody knew where he was."
"About an hour before we were due to go on, he turned up absolutely shitfaced. We said, well look, let's see if you can sing a couple of songs, and it was fucking dreadful."
So the band - at the very last minute - performed the MTV Unplugged show, with Noel singing his own lyrics. It was an amazing solo performance by Noel, but I wish Liam had arrived reasonably sober to the gig and had participated in a few songs despite claims of a sore throat.
Always felt this unplugged show was a moment of anarchy for Oasis.
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>>> Was there not a story from this that Liam he had a sore throat but he was seen on camera drinking and smoking and heckling Noel from a balcony?
Yes, this is correct. Noel makes reference to him a couple of times throughout the broadcast. Late in the show, Liam attempted to come down and sing an encore, but was kept off stage. There's a video about this somewhere on YouTube with clips featuring people from MTV who were working on the preparation and production of the show.
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And Kurt Loder said something to the effect of “Oasis without the lead singer, or Oasis as it always should have been”. That was a fucking magical performance and I’m listening to it right now.
And Noel has such a great sense of humor. Before Cast No Shadow, he says “I’d like to carry on with one that I wrote…”. He wrote all of them 🤣🤣🤣 he was basically trolling Liam at that point, probably knowing what an absolutely brilliant performance the band was having. Man… 1996 was a such a great time to be alive.
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The day before the show, MTV taped the full rehearsal. Liam sang all the songs he was supposed to sing. MTV contemplated using that footage mixed in with audience shots from the night Noel sang. In the end, they decided to just use the Noel performance and save money on the editing that would have been needed.