As you might guess, I have a bad case of Oasis on the brain. Between the near constant emails from their website in anticipation of the release of Stop The Clocks, the new song in the preview for their tourfilm Lord, Don't Slow Me Down, and the (scary) realization that I've been following my favorite band's triumphs and tribulations for TWELVE Effing YEARS, well I hope you'll bear with me as I try and take this all in. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was riding around Greenville, North Cackalacka listening to the brand new Cigarettes & Alcohol single on endless repeat.

Last night I was rustling through the last three unpacked boxes in my apartment and I opened my box of bootleg CD's and shuffled through them. I have a ton of Oasis stuff and I started listening to a few of my many Oasis gigs. I think my favorite era was in 1995-1996, when they were releasing a new single every few months, Noel was at the heights of his songwriting powers and they still had Mark Coyle behind the mixing board doing their sound. Back then Noel used to do a short acoustic set during the tail end of the gig and that always my favorite part of the show. I am an unabashed Liam fan and he makes the band for me, but sometimes it's nice to dial it down a bit and hear the songs as Noel wrote them. So, for your downloading pleasure, I present the three songs that Noel did acoustically from what I'm guessing was the October 14th gig at the Orpheum in Boston (my copy doesn't have the exact date). I saw them four days earlier in Baltimore.

[MP3] Noel Gallagher | Wonderwall

[MP3] Noel Gallagher | Morning Glory

[MP3] Noel Gallagher | Cast No Shadow

The above pic was from August 25th, 2000 when I travelled to England to see Oasis perform at the Reading Festival. Oasis played the first night of the festival and I spent most of the day stalking Noel around the backstage area and taking photos of him. I met up with the Super Furry Animals the next day to see them play and then went on the tour bus with them that night to see them play Leeds the next day. It was a hell of a weekend. I have more photos that I'll post next week along with some more MP3's.