How I Got Oasis🎸🎙️⚫⚪Tickets In 1997 For Dublin🇮🇪On The Be Here Now Tour

“Nobody knows the way it’s gonna be” – Noel Gallagher.

Getting Oasis ticketsin 1997 for the Be Here Now tour was nuts and the proper way to see your favourite rock’n’roll band.

Nothing was done online, nobody had the internet, nobody had any type of mobile phone at all, never mind a “smartphone”. Oasis massive “Be Here Now” tour ticket sales were done face to face in record stores all over the UK and Ireland. All over the UK, people would stay all night on the street in an orderly queue outside the record shops, waiting for it to open the next morning. Some kids these days don’t know they’re born…

Officially, there was a phone number for tickets over the phone, but there was less trust with that, plus nobody had a phone. I was 17 back then so I didn’t have a phone or a mobile phone, or a credit card or even a bank card! We all paid cash in hand back then. It was pay in cash only in the record shops, or by cheque.

The night before the Be Here Now tour tickets went on sale, we stayed up all night and queued outside the shop. We headed with food and drink to a shopping centre/mall called The Flagship Centre in Bangor before midnight. As an exception, they kept it open for us that night to queue all night for Oasis tickets.

A few lads brought guitars and footballs and we monitored the queue ourselves. We sang, played guitar, chatted, kicked football, drank beer through the night. There was a fairness about it – first come first served. It was maximum 2 tickets per person. We waited there all night for a shop called MTM (More Than Music) to open at 8 a.m. They had 100 tickets for each of the two gigs. That was it.

As soon as the record shop opened at 8 a.m. it was first come first served up to the counter. I was about 50th in the queue. A load of my mates got the Friday night, it went first, by the time it got to me, I got the Thursday night. By 8.20 a.m. all the tickets were gone and those who were still arriving – tough luck, we had stayed up all night and deserved that. The euphoria was massive!

No internet, no Wi-Fi, no smartphones, no videos. Then the concert day came and it was mental – my mate Begzi and I had a disposable camera of 24 photos and we took 12 each with it – we headed on a bus from Bangor in Northern Ireland to Dublin in Republic of Ireland. There was a stop in Belfast to fill the bus, then a stop in Dundalk for lunch and beers. Glory days loyal.