After playing a show on June 4, 2009 in Manchester’s Heaton Park that was interrupted by two power outages and long delays Oasis offered a full refund to 70,000 plus fans.
Liam Gallagher told the crowd:
“Really sorry about that, This is a free gig now. Everyone will get a refund.”
Noel Gallagher added:
“The curfew’s 11, but we’ll play ’til they kick us off. Keep your ticket and you’ll get your money back.”
Oasis had to leave the stage twice for a total of 40 minutes due to a blown out generator. Check out the LED screen message below…
Later in the set, however, Noel seemed to regret offering the refund. Before playing ‘Half The World Away‘ he said,
“We’re not sure how its gonna work with getting the money back, be on a website or summat. We’re not getting paid for this so buy a t-shirt on the way out. Credit crunch and that, keep my kids in sweets. If you’re getting your mum and dad to pick you up outside afterwards, tell them we’re not leaving til 2am. Kind of regret offering you your money back now. Apply for it back if you wanna be a cunt, we do our best for you.”
20,000 “cunts” of the 70,000 fans took Noel and Liam up on the offer and applied for the refund via oasisinet.com. One month after Noel promised a refund, Oasis sent out checks at a total of almost £1m. In a stroke of genius the checks that were sent out were legal tender but made to be a collectors items. It was issued with their logo and “Oasis: Bank of Burnage” and it bears Liam and Noel Gallagher’s signatures with the hopes that fans would not cash them in. Check it out…
Lots of the checks ended up on ebay but we aren’t quite sure how many were actually cashed in. Nice move.