Published Monday, 22 June 2009
Gallagher has criticised these 20,000 "cheeky" fans, mocking them on his blog.
"So you were genuinely disappointed?" he wrote. "There wasn't a 20,000 gap in the crowd."
It's not as if the fans were going behind Gallagher's back. The guitarist announced "this is a free gig from now on" mid-way through the Heaton Park concert, a show plagued with technical problems. A faulty generator had forced Oasis to leave the stage on two occasions.
"Anybody who has kept their ticket will get a full refund," he later affirmed.
Gallagher soon took the offer back, however. "The generator blew up," he said at one point. "If you can believe they run these things on a generator these days – what is it, the 1950s? So we had to borrow one from Argos. But it turned out OK. I'm regretting offering you your money back now."
Of the 70,000 attendees, less than a third took Gallagher at his word. If all 70,000 had requested their £45 back, Oasis would have lost £3m.
Oasis' first Manchester gig in four years had been planned for months. Organisers said it was Heaton Park's largest event since the Pope visited in 1982.