21/12/88: The Noel Gallagher Audition

This Is History
Written By Audio Echoes

A cold, wet Wednesday night in Oldham. December 21, 1988. The kind of night that makes you question your choices. Noel Gallagher, 21, stood at a bus stop in Manchester, clutching a scrap of paper with directions. Three buses. Rain pissing down. No mobile phones. No backup plan. Just a pub, a rehearsal room called The Mill, and a shot at becoming the new singer for Inspiral Carpets.

“I had to get like three buses, and it was raining. It was in the middle of winter. You’re thinking, like now, a young person would freak out. But I was just stood waiting at a bus stop, thinking, ‘I hope I’ve got the date right, I hope I’ve got the thing right,’” Noel later said.

Inspiral Carpets were on the rise. Their original frontman, Stephen Holt, had left the band amicably, and they needed a replacement. Noel, a fan of the band since 1987, saw his chance. He’d met Graham Lambert, the band’s guitarist, at a Stone Roses and James gig. Graham mentioned the vacancy, and Noel decided to go for it.

“I’d been to see you a lot, like about two weeks before at the International,” Noel said. “He said the singer had left, and if that’s going, I’m trying out to be the singer.”

The Mill

The Mill wasn’t much to look at. A rehearsal room with good sound but no glamour. It didn’t need any. Noel walked in, ready to prove himself. He sang Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones and a few Inspiral Carpets tracks, including Joe. He looked the part. He knew the songs. But it wasn’t enough.

“I do remember doing Gimme Shelter... and the rehearsal room being great actually. The sound in it was great,” Noel said.

Clint Boon, the band’s keyboard player, explained why it didn’t work:

“We knew he was a good songwriter, but we didn’t think his voice suited our band, as Steve had a big voice. Noel could sing, but it just didn’t fit our style.”

Noel himself admitted:

“I would loosely call it an audition. I think it’s like I looked all right and I knew some of the songs. That was it, and that was enough.”

The night wasn’t just about the audition. As the band left rehearsal, they turned on the car radio and heard the news of the Lockerbie plane disaster.

“That was the same night as the Lockerbie plane disaster. That’s right, yeah, because we came out of rehearsal and put the radio on in the car outside on South Street. John Peel briefly announced it at the end of his show,” Clint Boon recalled.

What Came Next

Noel didn’t get the gig. Tom Hingley did. He became the new frontman for Inspiral Carpets, leading the band through their most successful years. Noel? He got a different offer. The band hired him as a roadie.

“We hired him and took him around the world on tour with us. He wasn’t just a roadie; he was with us for everything. In our case, he really was the sixth member of the band for four years. That’s how he learnt a lot about the industry and the inner workings of a band,” said Clint Boon.

Noel soaked it all in. The tours. The gear. The chaos. He learned what worked and what didn’t. He learned how to be in a band.

“They were great days, just being into music and being totally into it, you know what I mean? Getting three buses to go to it... yeah, I wouldn’t change it for anything,” Noel said.

A Night That Changed Everything

December 21, 1988. A failed audition. A tragedy on the radio. A spark that set everything in motion. Noel Gallagher didn’t become the singer for Inspiral Carpets. He became something else entirely.

“Imagine if we’d taken on Noel? That’s another chapter of the Inspirals’ history that we should maybe one day investigate,” Clint Boon said.

But history didn’t go that way. Noel Gallagher didn’t get the job. He did alright in the end though.

Sources

Audio Echoes https://www.audioechoes.com
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