Chapter Text
Noel had been clear.
The time for messing around and just having fun was over. From now on, they would take it seriously. Very seriously.
Bringing the band to success had always been their final goal, but to get there, they had to work hard. There was no shortcut. They had to get better at playing together, they had to improve the sound, they had to write better songs and, most of all, they had to find a way to stand out, get their name known and finally land the long awaited record deal.
After all, he wouldn't have left a secure job as a roadie to Inspiral Carpets if he hadn't been sure that everyone in Oasis was committed 100% in what they were doing. Or, at least, that was what everyone had promised him a few months back, in order to have him and his songs as part of the band.
The first rule he had set was to rehearse together 5 days a week. No exceptions of any kind, no excuses. If you wanted to be in the band, you had to be there every night, end of story. Bonehead had learnt this the hard way when he had to refuse an invitation to his best friend's wedding just because he would've risked missing the rehearsals that night. But rules are rules, said the Chief, and weddings are just a boring waste of time.
Lately, the 5 days a week commitment had become even more strict: 6 days a week, two hours every day at 9 PM was the final schedule that everyone had agreed on. After all, how could they disagree with Noel considering that he was bringing new songs every week and was doing all the hard work to keep sending demos around and banging on every British label's door to get them heard. The least they could do was to be there and do what they all wished to do for the rest of their life: play.
It was Saturday evening and Louise, Noel's girlfriend, was speaking on the phone with Peggy. Since Noel had left his childhood home to go to live with his girlfriend, she and Peggy had become close and used to chat almost as much as Peggy did with her own son.
As they were laughing on the phone, Noel walked beside her and stopped.
“Who are you talking to?” he asked her, curious.
“Your mother”, she replied, pulling the receiver away from her mouth.
“Oh. Tell her I say hi.”
Noel resumed walking, but Louise stopped him shortly after.
“Wait, she wants to talk to you!”
Noel rolled his eyes and reached for the phone. Louise stepped away, smiling.
“Hi Mam.”
“Hi Noely, how are you?”
“I'm fine.”
“It's been a while since you came here.”
“Yeah, I've been busy. You know, writing, recording demos, going to record labels just to have the door slammed in me face...”
“Come on, don't say that. I know it's hard, but Liam has told me that you're working a lot to promote the band and that's very good. I'm proud of you. And I'm sure sooner or later someone's gonna finally notice you.”
“Yeah, I'm sure too. I'm not giving up.”
“How about you and Louise come over for dinner tomorrow? It would be good to see you.”
“Uhm, sorry, we can't. Louise and I are going to meet one of her colleagues who may have some interesting connections to this independent label. Another time, alright?”
“Alright, alright. You cannot rest even on Sunday, can't you?”
Noel shrugged.
“I guess no.”
“Okay, maybe next week then.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
As they were speaking, Liam's voice could be heard in the background.
“I'm going out, Mam!”
“Alright, see you later, Liam”, Peggy replied to him.
Noel immediately jumped on her, confused.
“Is Liam going out? Where is he going?”, he asked his mother, slightly upset.
“I don't know, I think he's seeing some friends or some girl...He hasn't told me.”
“But it's Saturday, we have rehearsals in less than an hour.”
“I really don't know.”
“Can you put him on?”
“Okay – she pulled the receiver away - Liam! Could you come here for a minute? Noel wants to talk to you.”
Liam stopped, annoyed.
“What the fuck does he want?! Tell him I can't, I'm already late“, he yelled from the other side of the room.
“Oh, come on, just a minute. Pick up the phone. Here.”
Liam scoffed and reached for the phone.
“What?”, he asked his brother, eager to leave.
“Oi. Where the fuck d'you think you're going? We've got rehearsals, have you forgotten it?”
“What?? It's Saturday! What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Yeah, it's Saturday, but we have decided to play 6 days a week, so you've got to be there.”
Liam paused, realizing only in that moment that he had messed up.
“Shit! - he mumbled to himself – I forgot that we were doing Saturdays. Sorry, I cannot be there tonight.”
Noel snapped.
“What the fuck d'you mean you can't be there tonight?! You have to, so cancel your fucking plans and get your ass ready!”
“I can't. I'm going out with Diane Sterling. You know? Diane Sterling.”
“Who the fuck is Diane Sterling??”
“She's the coolest girl in school! You know, you've met her at Chris' birthday party last month.”
“Uhm...Oh, that bird? She's not that cool.”
“You say that just because she's soooo out of your league.”
“Just shut up! Anyway, I don't care if she's the Princess of Wales or summat, you've got rehearsals so call her and tell her you can't go out with her.”
“What? Are you kidding? You know how long I’ve been trying to make her say yes? It's been months!”
“I don't give a shit! You're in a band now and the band comes first.”
“C'mon, it's just for one night! You can do it without me for once.”
“You're the fucking singer! We cannot rehearse without you!”
“But how can I stand her up now? I'm supposed to meet her in ten minutes, if I bail on her now, she's gonna be so pissed off that she won't go out with me ever again!”
“She’ll never be as pissed off as I’m gonna be if you don’t show up tonight. So, make up your mind and make the right call. Also, if you don't show up, you're out of the band.”
“What the fuck??! You can't kick me out of the band, this is my band! I invited you to join in!”
“Yeah, so now this is my band too and I'll kick out everyone who won't take it seriously! I can't be the only one who works his arse off in here! I've been writing non-stop since I joined in and I've been doing all the management shite since you lads won't bother to do it. D'you know how many labels I've been contacting this week only? Six fucking labels! And d'you know how many demos I've been sending out? Way too much! You only have one job to do and your job is to fucking show up at rehearsals and sing, so fucking do it!”
“I am doing it! I just forgot we should meet tonight and took other plans.”
“This is not my problem. Be there tonight or you're out.”
“Fuck off!”
“You fuck off!”
Liam hung up, smashing the receiver on the table.
Noel hung up too, visibly pissed.
Louise came closer to him, worried.
“Is everything okay?”, she asked.
Noel shook his head and walked away.
Later on, in the cellar room at the Boardwalk where they used to rehearse almost every night, only Noel, Bonehead, Guigsy and Tony were present. Everyone was bored and distractedly jamming on their instruments, waiting for Liam to finally show up to start the real session.
Noel glanced at his watch one more time and shook his head. It was almost 9.30 and his patience was over.
“Alright, lads, we've waited enough. I'm gonna sing tonight”, he told his bandmates, upset.
Saying so, he reached the microphone and they all started to play.
They finished a couple of songs and they were about to start 'Bring it on down', when the door finally opened and Liam stepped in.
He was all sweaty and he was panting as he had just stopped running.
Everybody turned to him.
“Hi lads”, he said while catching his breath.
Noel briefly glared at him, visibly pissed off, and then focused back on his guitar.
“So, what are we playing?”, Liam resumed, acting as if nothing had happened.
Before anyone could answer, Noel stepped in.
“D'you know what time it is?”, he asked, mad.
“Uhm...Yeah, I might be a lil' late.”
“A little? You're almost an hour late! At this point, you could've just not bothered coming.”
“Ohh, wait a minute! You told me that if I hadn't come, you would've kicked me out of the band and now you're saying that I shouldn't have bothered coming?!”
“It goes without saying that you were expected to be here on time.”
“Fuck that! - Liam snapped, anger taking over him – D'you know what I had to go through to be here tonight? When I hung up on you, I tried to call Diane to tell her I couldn't be there, but she had already left her house. So, I went to the pub where we were supposed to meet and I saw her. She had this blue dress...she was so fucking hot, but still I had to tell her straight to her face that I couldn't stay because I had to go rehearse with me band. At that point, she got really mad at me, she told me I'm dickhead who doesn't give a shit about her and she should've never gone out with me in the first place, but she obviously won't repeat the same mistake again. Then, she left, angry as fuck, so I took the bus and finally got here.”
“Oh, that's a really touching story! – Noel replied, sarcastically – So, what, do you want a fucking medal to finally be able to be here and do your job? Here, let me check if I have some spare ones being left behind from the Olympics.”
Noel pretended to search his pockets.
“I don't want a fucking medal, but you could at least appreciate that I-
“Do you think Louise is happy that I'm here every fucking night?! Do you think Bonehead's missus is happy? Do you think Guigsy and Tony's girlfriends are happy? – Noel paused – Well, no, because they have nobody, but the point is that everybody's got their problems, but still we're all here without complaining because we believe in what we're doing.”
“I believe in what we're doing! I'm the one who believes it the most!”
“Then fucking show it, shut the fuck up and just get to the mic! We already lost an hour because of you, we don't need to lose another one arguing.”
Liam glared at him, speechless. Then, he cursed under his breath and took Noel's place at the microphone.
“We're doing Bring it on down”, Noel told everybody, quickly moving on from what had just happened.
They began playing.
Having to sing some hard and energetic songs, somehow helped Liam to release his anger and before anybody could realize it, the night was over.
While Bonehead and Guigsy were putting their instruments in the case, Noel noticed that Liam was sitting on a chair on the other side of the room. He looked visibly sad and demoralized.
At first, Noel tried to ignore him, but then a sudden twist in his gut pushed him back towards him. Maybe he had been too hard on his brother. Surely, seeing him down like that wasn't how he wished this night to end.
He took a deep breath and decided to go talk to him.
“You alright, 'rKid?”, he asked with a soft tone, while sitting beside him.
Liam shrugged.
“Like you cared.”
Then, he moved forward, ready to get up and walk away.
Noel stopped him.
“Of course I do.”
Liam sighed and sat again, leaning his elbows on his knees.
“I fucking hate it when you get all bossy like that”, he admitted after a short hesitation.
Noel smirked.
“C'mon, I'm not that bossy.”
“What?? Sometimes you're like a fucking dictator!”
Noel let out a light chuckle.
“A dictator?”
“Yeah, you can't even realize how much of a cunt you can become!”
Noel's expression turned pensive.
“I...All right, maybe I was a little too hard on you tonight, but it was just because I needed you to understand how important this is. This is all we've got, there's no plan B, so we have to make it work, or we're fucked up. D'you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do, but still...Tonight has been shite to me, I wish you understood that too.”
“C'mon, a bird dumped you, it's not the end of the world! When you become a rockstar, you'll get so many of them that you won't even remember all their names!”
Liam immediately stood up.
“What the fuck is wrong with you??”, he jumped on his brother, visibly mad.
“What did I say now??”
“I told you how much I cared about this bird and all you can say is 'Oh, it's nothing, when you get famous you'll have hundreds of them'!”
“I was just trying to cheer you up! I thought you liked that!”
“Fuck that! You know what? You're just a jealous little prick who likes to treat me like shit and who's happy when I fail so he can feel better about himself and forget how miserable he is.”
“What??”
“Fuck off!”
Liam pushed the chair that almost fell on the floor and then walked away.
Noel stared at him, concerned, and sighed deeply.