'I've seen Oasis five times when it mattered - here's why I'm not going to the reunion shows'

I was excited to go to a rave reunion once, and it was all a bit tragic, revellers were either comparing mortgages or arguing over child maintenance payments. I can just imagine how bad next summer's stadium concerts will be, drunk drugged up yobs to one side, vegetarian off-the-beer types to the other.

And all whilst being charged a tenner a pint, and not being able to partake in Cigarettes and Alcohol watching the band that sang it. And that is after you have forked out for an eye-wateringly high hotel room.

Why bother when I can just close my eyes and remember?

My mate Dean, who always discovered the next big thing before anyone else, gave me a copy of Definitely Maybe in 1994 and I was hooked.

Brash, simple and a little dangerous. Rock n Roll was for our parents, it had all become a bit tame by the 1990s. America replaced the big-haired spandex-wearing rock which dominated the 80s with grunge, but the UK's scene had yet to deal with the emergence of rave music and hip hop.

But the arrogance and attitude of the Gallagher brothers gave my generation the chance to cheer every TV being thrown out hotel windows and sweary interview.

Definitely Maybe became a favourite, and for me, was never topped by them. I liked the brothers obviously but Guiggsey and Bonehead really made the band feel like working class blokes made good. As 1994 turned into 1995 the Gallaghers became tabloid caricatures but Guiggsey and Bonehead seemed to stay the same.

Within a year the band went from playing spit and sawdust venues to announcing two massive homecoming gigs at Manchester City's ground Maine Road on April 27 and 29 of 1995.

By then I was living in Manchester as a student and Dean pestered me to try and get tickets, which amazingly I did, four of them. But I don't remember it being a big deal like it will be for anyone who somehow manages to A) afford £150 a ticket and B) gets on to the website.

My friends came up to Salford and were shocked I'd managed to find somewhere worse than Perry Barr to move to. Off we set to the stadium, myself, Dean, Eamonn and Nobby.

After a bus journey we were walking towards the stadium and Dean realised he lost his ticket. He remembered having it at the bus stop in Salford. So off we trekked on two buses, obviously a local scally would have found it and have a tale to tell. But after a journey back we found the lost ticket.The elation was indescribable.

At the stadium loads of young men had grown beards and wore John Lennon glasses as was Liam's style at the time, only for him to come out clean shaven and in Umbro. I was glad I'd shaved mine off the day before knowing the abuse I'd get from my Brum mates. Man City were in danger of going down and played Villa that day, so we were expecting trouble. Perhaps it came, I can't remember.

The Manic Street Preachers supported Oasis, but I knew they would not be as good as when I saw all four of them at Wolverhampton Civic Hall three years before. I remember thinking it was a once-in-a-generation event, so presumed it would go on till dawn. I remember surprised when it ended, I told my other friends there would be a third encore.

There wasn't and we left the empty stadium. We headed back to my box room but laughed our way through the night.

The next day they headed home and I was left in the third city; at the students' union I was being asked by everyone how the gig was, I was the only person they knew who had gone.

I gave up lying after the third person and just told everyone I could not remember a thing, I'd gone to our Woodstock and forgot the lot.

Then I remembered, they were playing again in a few hours, and only a few miles away. So I decided to go on my own, try and sneak in, how hard could it be?

Off I went, on my Jack Jones, without a plan but three ciders worth of confidence. I quickly realised I was not the only one with that plan. There were gangs of teenagers who had taken the night off joyriding to try their luck sneaking in. This being a stadium it was already built to keep people out without tickets.

The Manchester locals seemed to try once, behind a ticket holder through a turnstile, and if unsuccessful give up. There was a crowd outside the stadium with drinks who decided to enjoy the show they could not see.

I then saw some Scousers, late teens, wearing ski jackets a little too big for them and scarves, or masks and oddly all in blue hats. And bulges in a few of their jackets. Unlike the giggling messes my friends and I were 24 hours before heading into the concert, these fellas were deadly serious. I thought, 'wow, they really must like Morning Glory' and deducted they were getting in.

I followed them, from afar, they were doing a scouting trip. They tried to get over one fence but the first over realised it went nowhere worth the climb. Next they tried an old turnstile, I noticed police walking in our direction, I shouted: "Old Bill."

They scattered, with a few "thanks, La."

After further wandering round, I'd given up until I saw a flash of blue heading into a turnstile, it was them, and none of them came back out so I hotfooted it, ran through the smashed door they had broken down and within 20 seconds was in the crowd.

It was dusk, the atmosphere was rowdy and excitable, I'd missed the support, everyone was waiting for Oasis. On they strutted and there was a surge towards the front. A minute of Swamp Song then Acquiesce. I was on my own, no-one to talk to, no-one to get a drink for, or wait for as they did this or that, or spoke to someone they'd never met before.

It was just me and the music. During the eight-minute version of Supersonic darkness fell on Maine Road as I shouted: "You need to find out, cause no one's gonna tell you what I'm on about!" into the sky.

My only quest was to get as close as I could to the front, where the action was. This takes bloody mindedness, stealth and a thousand "scuse me" and "sorries".

I could have done with the Scousers leading the way. But, I got as close as I could without having to have queued for 12 hours before the concert, or a VIP ticket, which was about 20 metres from the stage in front of a ring of steel, which created a crush and a proper mosh. I'd written off whatever I was wearing and moshed away, and sure enough there they were, minus coats, scarves and hats - the Scousers.

"Alright La," one laughed, telling the others: "he's not even bothered to lose the disguise,". Realising my idiocy I threw the Marks & Spencers blue jacket, with the professionally sewed Lacoste badge on it, on the floor, sacrificing it to great gigmaker in the sky.

Unlike the previous night when I thought the gig would live forever, I knew this one would not so I savoured every single moment, right up until the last note of Slade's Cum on Feel the Noise (a fantastic live Black Country anthem to finish any concert).

It was a great concert, not as good as the Manic Street Preachers, or U2 when they phoned Salmon Rushdie at Wembley, but it felt like I had been part of something. I'd never love Oasis more than that moment again.

A few months later the band would play Knebworth, I decided to queue up in Manchester but the line was longer than anything Noel chopped up during his toilet visits in 10 Downing Street. I gave up immediately and tried my luck from a payphone next to the queue. Remarkably, I got through and got four tickets. Two old pals, cousins, who let me in their gang when I was an askward teenager looking to belong, got the call to say the tickets were for them, especially as Knebworth was on one of their birthdays.

However, in a sign with what was to come, both in how tickets are sold and my future finances, two weeks after the phone call, they attempted to take the money out of my account. And it obviously was not there, I thought they had taken it, you know, when I bought them over the phone, laughing at all those in line waiting to pay cash.

The letter was sent to my home address, so I did not see it until the day before the letter, which looking back they did not have to send or would now, told me I had to ring up before I'd lose the tickets. I pulled it off and along with 500,000 people in the UK looked forward to another generational Oasis event.

However, the day before the concert, my friend's dad died. The cousins would stay at home and I had to find new people to go with, who were easy to find. The sheer size of the gig, and the queues, and the miles of walking as well as a gnawing feeling I should have stayed with my mates, meant I did not have the best time, and I got lost, before I succumbed to having a mobile phone. I even went the lost and found tent where they had erected a tent you could leave notes to lost friends, which was insane, there was no way any of my pals would look for a missing persons tent.

The venue was too big, queues for drinks took hours, and the band were so far away it could have been anyone on stage. I've never gone to a mega-gig since.

I even think arenas are too big, and I saw Oasis at G-Mex and the NIA.

However, if like Blur, who as I've grown up ended up liking more than Oasis, something a teenage me, would never believe, Oasis play a warm up gig at Wolves Civic, I'd rip your hand off for a ticket.