An archive of more than 100 hours of Oasis recordings – including concerts, rehearsals and candid conversations between Noel and Liam Gallagher – is to be auctioned for up to £1.6m despite objections from the band.
The collection was amassed by the band’s sound engineer Huw Richards, who worked with Oasis from the release of their 1994 debut album, Definitely Maybe, until 2001. It comprises 209 DAT tapes, 73 analogue cassettes and three MiniDiscs, and is being sold by Richards’s son, Owain.
Littleton Auctions in Evesham, Worcestershire, has given the archive a guide price of between £1.2m and £1.6m, with the sale due to take place on 3 October.
Ben Homer, the auction house’s managing director, said Oasis had expressed concerns about the sale.
“The Oasis camp is aware of the auction and has expressed concerns, which is entirely understandable given the scale and significance of the material,” he said in a statement to the Guardian.
Homer said the auction house was handling the sale through the appropriate legal process and the recordings were being offered with verified provenance. He said the archive would give collectors and institutions the opportunity to acquire material documenting an important period in British music.
The collection includes what is believed to be the only recording of Oasis’s 1996 concert on the banks of Loch Lomond in Scotland. It also contains recordings of numerous rehearsals and soundchecks, as well as informal conversations involving the Gallagher brothers and members of the touring crew.
Owain Richards, who is also a sound engineer, said he had previously been in discussions with Oasis’s management after the band sought some of the recordings.
He told the Times those discussions had ultimately “fizzled away” and that the band wanted the tapes returned rather than sold elsewhere.
Richards said his father had meticulously preserved the recordings, which date from a period when concertgoers were far less likely to make their own recordings on mobile phones. “It really is a piece of history,” he said.
Richards said the audio remained in sufficiently good condition to be mastered for a live album. The recordings cannot, however, simply be released by whoever buys them. Oasis retain the intellectual property rights, meaning the archive cannot be commercially exploited without the band’s cooperation.
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Littleton Auctions has described the collection as a significant record of the band’s live career and said it could be of interest to collectors, scholars and museums.
The auction comes as interest in Oasis continues to grow since the band’s reunion last year, when Noel and Liam Gallagher returned to the stage together for the first time in 15 years.
Oasis became one of the biggest British rock bands of the 1990s, with albums including (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and Be Here Now. Their career was marked by the fractious relationship between the Gallagher brothers, whose arguments eventually contributed to the band’s split in 2009.
The reunion saw Oasis play sold-out dates in Britain, North America, Australia and Asia. The brothers were also pictured together at the Venice film festival this weekend, where Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, a film documenting their return, was premiered.
The Littleton auction will also feature other Oasis memorabilia, including a pair of Adidas Kegler Super Ostrich trainers given to Noel Gallagher. Oasis were approached for comment.
