When hotel manager Innegrit Volkhardt travels around Great Britain to advertise her Bayerischer Hof, she is often asked about a legendary night 20 years ago: Because back then, on December 1, 2002, music history was written in her Munich luxury hotel – “because which was more or less the end of Oasis”.
“They behaved like pigs,” the “Spiegel” quoted a police spokesman at the time as saying. “English rock band Oasis arrested after fight in Munich,” the official police report said a little more soberly.
But the only thing that was sober about this event was the police report. “It was a wild fight between Oasis and the other group,” says Volkhardt in retrospect in an interview with the German Press Agency. She was on vacation at the time, as she says. But then she looked at the video from the surveillance camera. “You only saw a big pile on the camera.” As the police reported, even a five-kilo bollard from the hotel was involved.
The argument broke out in the hotel’s nightclub just after 2 a.m., according to the police report: “During the course of this argument, one of the musicians was pushed and fell onto the table of other guests.” When they tried to “get rid of the uninvited guest”, all band members suddenly attacked the group.
Security guards and hotel employees only managed to mediate for a short time – then it continued in front of the entrance to the nightclub. And the employees called the police. “One of the officers on duty was kicked with full force in the chest by Liam G., the band’s frontman, and suffered minor injuries,” the police report said.
This “Liam G.” was then arrested together with two other band members – including but not his brother Noel G. – and had to spend a night in prison. That “Liam G.” Liam Gallagher was no longer a secret shortly after the incident, especially given the fact that the police immediately released the band’s name.
Gallagher no longer wants to talk about that evening today, as a spokeswoman for his record company said when asked. What he thought of the evening and the operation of the Munich police, however, he had previously announced – and accused the officers, among other things, of having two of his incisors on their conscience.
The band did not appear at the trial for that legendary party evening later at the district court. The musicians were sent home after paying a bail of around 240,000 euros. The case against Gallagher for assault and resisting arrest was later dropped for a fine of 50,000 euros.
But the Germany tour that the band was on at the time was cancelled. The concert was cancelled, read a note at the Munich concert hall at the time. The band had become “victims of an attack through no fault of their own”. About a week later, the “News of the World” reported: Liam Gallagher has new teeth. They are said to have cost him £20,000 at the time.
“I think that the brawl in the Bayerischer Hof marks the beginning of the end is a bold thesis,” says music journalist Ernst Hofacker, who is familiar with British music and recently published two books on “Popular Misconceptions and Other Truths” about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones released. “Things like that could happen at any time with spirited musicians like Oasis, and in the end other factors were more responsible for the breakup of the band. The really big hits of the format like “Wonderwall” didn’t materialize, the Britpop hype was long gone, and the arguments between Noel and Liam didn’t diminish.”
Nevertheless, the evening in the Bayerischer Hof was a turning point for what is perhaps the most famous British band since the Beatles: “After this incident there was a break in broadcasting, and it took three years until the next and sixth in total with “Don’t Believe The Truth”. Oasis album came out,” says Hofacker. “Although this and the last album “Dig Out Your Soul”, released in 2008, were quite successful, one can say that Oasis’ time was basically up in the perception of the audience.”
Since 2009, fans have been waiting for Liam and Noel to pull themselves together again and relive the great Oasis times. They definitely had a place to stay in Munich: “They weren’t the only ones to blame,” says hotel manager Volkhardt. “Of course we would take her again.”
