I went in search of Oasis’s Manchester – and found forgotten roots of Britpop

“Maybe you’re the same as me. We see things they’ll never see. You and I are gonna live for ever.”

I’m listening to these lyrics outside what was once The Boardwalk club in Manchester – which now houses offices – the place where Oasis played their first gig. There’s a blue plaque on the side of the red-brick building. It reads: “1984 – 1999. The Boardwalk. Madchester venue nightclub and rehearsal rooms”, with an acid house smiley yellow face underneath it.

The Hacienda nightclub was turned into Hacienda Apartments (Photo: Manc Wanderer/Marketing Manchester)

It was here, Brit Music Tours’ guide Elizabeth Sibbering (“Sibby”) tells me that, in 1991, Noel Gallagher – then a roadie for the band Inspiral Carpets – watched his younger brother Liam perform with a new band called Oasis. Apparently, Noel was unimpressed by the performance and said they would do better if he was involved as a songwriter. After listening to one of his songs, Live Forever, they agreed. Five months later, Oasis, now with Noel, played at The Boardwalk again and the band went on to play at the venue eight times.

When Oasis announced their reunion tour, the Music Venues Trust said that out of the 34 grassroots UK venues the band played on their first tour, just 11 were still open. And, as I discover walking around the city, several Manchester venues that once hosted Oasis have since been lost.

A mural featuring Noel and Liam of Oasis in the Northern Quarter ahead of their concerts in Heaton Park (Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty)

The city has had a blast of 90s music nostalgia in recent weeks, however. Fast forward 34 years from Oasis’s performance at The Boardwalk, and the band are about to play five gigs in Heaton Park, after a 16-year absence. Manchester is in full Oasis fever. People on my tour are talking about the gigs and are upset that they didn’t secure tickets. But, in celebration of the reunion, there are pop-up exhibitions in the city centre, new walking tours, merchandise shops, Oasis themed brunches and drinks menus and Oasis-themed bars with live music. Even if you aren’t attending the gigs, you can immerse yourself into the frenzy.

While I’ve not been tempted to buy an Oasis bucket hat yet, the band is one of the most famous from my home city and listening to their songs takes me back to pivotal moments in my life. I had just become a teenager when the album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? was released in 1995 and bought the cassette with my birthday money. A song from the album, “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, later became a symbol of Manchester’s spirit and resilience after the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017.

My tour with Sibby takes me to other venues where the band performed, including the site of the Hacienda (now apartments) and Manchester Central convention centre, once a railway station. Oasis played one of the centre’s last ever gigs, in 1997, when it was known as the G-Mex.

For fans who would like to discover even more sights significant to the Gallaghers, a new dedicated Oasis tour of the city centre will run on the two weekends of the gigs (13 and 20 July) with local guide Jonathan Schofield.

Earlier in the week, I stepped back in time to the brothers’ 1996 gig at Manchester’s Maine Road stadium, then the home of their beloved football team Manchester City and now a housing development, in the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel.

At its Refuge bar, there’s a free photography exhibition (running until the end of August, and curated by the British Culture Archive) that shows Oasis fans queueing for tickets to the sold-out show. The shots were taken by photographer Jon Shard, for NME. He told me that the night “was a mix of excitement and patience. Even in the cold, people were in good spirits, chatting, sharing snacks, wrapped in sleeping bags… You could really feel how much it meant to them, which made it great for me to capture on camera.”

To complement these images, there are photographs by Amelia Troubridge from inside the Maine Road gigs as well as a “Fan Wonderwall” with pictures and memories submitted by the public. One picture here is of Shaun, who was 13 when he attended the gig. He remembers Liam and Noel’s mum, Peggy, along with Liam’s ex-wife Patsy Kensit, coming out of their family box to talk to him and other fans and that they were “so kind, especially Peggy”.

Peggy brought up Liam, Noel and their older brother Paul in the south Manchester suburb of Burnage. After my tour, I head there to visit their local second-hand record shop Sifters Records that is mentioned in the 1994 song “Shakermaker” – Liam sings, “Mr Sifter sold me songs when I was just 16″. There’s a mural on its side of the Definitely Maybe album cover by street artist Pic.One.Art. It was painted last year to mark the 30th anniversary of the band’s debut album.

As I arrive, there’s a man taking a picture of the shopfront. “Are you doing the same as me?” he asks. “An Oasis tour of the city.” Inside, two women take a selfie with owner Pete Howard (Mr Sifter).

Pete Howard of Sifters Records is name-checked in an Oasis song (Photo: Cathy Toogood)

I flick through the shop’s CDs and records and am glad to see that there are two Oasis CDs still in stock (Stop the Clocks and Dig Out Your Soul) as well as one by Liam Gallagher and one by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

I ask Pete whether he’s been busier than normal over the last couple of weeks. “I’ve been here for 48 years now,” he says. “They [Oasis] injected new life into the shop. I’d been here for 20 years previously but there’s a different feel now. I get people in every day. More at the moment because of the hype and the gigs.”

I end my day by walking through Fog Lane Park, a five-minute stroll from Sifters, where Liam and Noel played football, and which featured in the music video for “Shakermaker”. There’s a small fair on next to the football fields and groups of children are kicking balls around and playing cricket on the grass in the early evening sunshine.

I wonder what these children’s dreams are and whether they, like two boys who were doing the same thing decades earlier, will “live for ever” in musical history.

Five more Oasis sights in Manchester

Peveril of the Peak (Photo: Manc Wanderer/Marketing Manchester)

• The Peveril of the Peak – a yellow and green tiled Victorian boozer in the city centre where Oasis posed for promotional shots before Definitely Maybe was released. 
• Selfridge’s Manchester – as part of a city-wide art trail called Music for the Senses, a dark red Epiphone Riviera guitar signed and donated by Liam and Noel will be on display in the shop in Exchange Square. 
• Definitely Maybe Bar – this Oasis-themed bar in shopping emporium Afflecks Palace’s basement is home to a mini Oasis museum with memorabilia, a merchandise shop, performances by tribute acts and pool tables. Outside the bar, on the Afflecks art wall – which features other Manchester greats such as Emmeline Pankhurst and Ian Brown – there’s a new mosaic of the brothers by artist Mark Kennedy, in partnership with the bar. 
• The Etihad Stadium – Liam and Noel proudly support Manchester City. Head to the Etihad Stadium for a tour or pop to the stadium store to browse the range of Oasis merchandise offered in partnership with the club.
• India House – on Whitworth Street in the city centre, this is where Noel Gallagher lived from 1989 until 1993 and wrote “Live Forever”, plus other songs from the band’s first albums.