Numerous pictures of fans and members of the band at the Royal Festival Hall for the recording of Oasis Unplugged on 23rd August 1996

They could wait for a lifetime, and probably would. Join us and the ticketless fans who spent the day praying someone would drop a backstage pass outside Oasis's Unplugged gig. So what was it like being outside the greatest no-show of the decade?

They called her "Egg-Meg" when she tried to pull her man into the Merc. His T-shirt stretched into a cotton-cone - Noel Gallagher was clearly up for a bit of a show. We stood there for 30 seconds, drink in one hand, waving with the other, before surrendering to the tug. A few pictures. No handshakes. And no autographs. Thirty ticketless teenagers had been waiting behind the barriers all day for this?

12.30pm: Inside the Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, London. A saxaphone quartet plays jazz for an audience of some 40 people. They don't play a bebop version of 'Wonderwall'. Some German pensioners are trying to locate the cafe. No one is screaming for Bonehead. The only give-away is the posters at the doors warning of a special private event, but they don't mean much unless they've read the Daily Star.

1.00pm: Outside the artists' entrance. Security men in bright yellow shirts - lokking like Big Bird - are still pretty chatty. For now. The only two Oasis fans are two girls with ponytails and fringes from Plaistow. Shelley, 15, has just found out Noel's address: "I had a photo of it from the papers and we wandered around St John's Wood and suddenly saw it. It had the security system on the left. That's how we knew."

And where is it?

"Nooh, I'm not telling you!"

"I love Liam," Shelley says. "When I first talked to him all I could do was cry. 'Stop crying,' he said, but I couldn't. He's lovely. He would do anything for you."

Will he recognise you?

"No. He was completely out of his box the day he saw me."

And all this thing with Patsy?

"I still love you, Liam, even if you are engaged. Invite me to the wedding! I'm going to have a tattoo when I'm 16, 'Liam' on my ankle. If she can do it, I cn."

Shelley graba a fag [shame on you] from her big blue Bennetton bag. Her friend Kim, 14, has got the same in green and matching jumper. Kim doesn't really like Oasis [she's into garage, right] but 'cos she's Shelley's best mate has spent the last three days and two nights camped here, covered with a Union Jack towel.

"It was quite warm," she says, looking at the positive side of things. "We just went home today when it started raining to get some warmer clothes."

1.37pm: A guy in a green parka arrives on his wannabe Vespa. No he's not Liam. He's not even that geezer in Ocean Colour Scene. "No, I'm a photographer from The Express. You can take my picture - I don't normally allow people to do that."

1.55pm: Jennie, 17, Emma, 17, and Denise, 23, arrive from Chessington, Surrey. Next to them a Liam Gallagher lookalike of 28 years: Tony, from Boreham Wood, Herts.

"We went backstage at Knebworth, and we've been to Earl's Court, Cardiff, Manchester and Whitley Bay," says Jennie. "We haven't really got a social life anymore because we have to save up for the gigs and to go down to Noel's house. We've been going there since May, once a week."

The girls often sit in the pub across the road. They once spent 15 hours outsdie the house. Emma: "We paid £25 for a cab once. We had to get warm and were driven round the place."

2.13pm: Tony [Liam Gallagher with a suntan, he wishes] joins in. He points at his suede shoes: "I bought them at Clark's. When I meet Liam backstage I ask him where he gets his clothes from. He wears nice clothes Liam does."

Some paparazzi turn up, cameras with lenses longer than their dicks. And a woman photographer from The Sun.

"Do you know Andy Coulson? I love Andy Coulson, he's gorgeous." Emma is excited.

"I bet he's loaded," Jennie adds. Competition for Oasis?

"Oh noo, Bonehead is my favourite, 'cos no one likes him."

3.20pm:It's time to get the photo album out. Emma has about 30 pictures. One with her and Noel, one signed by Noel, Liam and Noel, Noel at the airport, Noel in front of his house...So who's your favourite, eh? Emma doesn't want to say, she gets embarrassed and giggles a lot. "Noel," she finally admits.

3.50pm:A black Merc stops right at the entrance. Paparazzi Nikons are clicking. The girls start bouncing up and down, screaming. Liam vanishes into the building.

"He could have at least come over," says Priscilla, a 16-year old beauty from Watford, close to tears. "There's not even a dozen fans." And she hoped Liam was going to sign her copy of ex-tour manager Ian Robertson's Oasis biography - no chance.

3.55pm: Noel shows. More high-pitched voices. A quick wave and he's gone.

"I like his bushy eyebrows, they're really manly," says Emma.

4.03pm: Priscilla and her friends, Louise, 15, and Bea, 15, on their Oasis addiction: "Little things Noel says, we just repeat, like when he was on telly, we just sit there and say what he said." They know thr TFI Friday interview by heart, but lose the plot when asked to do it, so content themselves with Blur-baiting. "Blur are shit. Blur's songs don't mean nothing. 'Country House', what was that all about?'"

4.12pm: Neil, 20, and his mate Andrew, 19, from Harrow have won two tickets on the Internet. Bastards. "No, I'd never sell my ticket," they say. Not even if we threatened to murder your family? "No."

6.23pm: About 80 ticket-holders are standing in the chilling wind, blowing acroiss from the river. Even Creation's Alan McGee has to queue. Doors open at 6.45pm and by 7.30pm everyone will be in. That's the plan. Peter, 23, and Julie, 21, from Munich, have won tickets with a German radio station, return flight to London and a £250-per-night hotel room inclusive. Bastards. "We're not expecting anything. I just want to be kissed by Liam," says Peter. Rotherham kiss, maybe.

7.30pm: Queues are now up to 100 from both sides of the venue. Not everyone, however, is queuing outside the venue. In Camden, Natascha and Natalie, non-identical twins from Rome, are outside The Spread Eagle.

"Noel calls us the mod-twins," says Natalie. "He once phoned me from America and went to another room to use the phone because Meg was there."

10.32pm: The secret gig's over. Natalie and about 10 Italian girls are leaning over the barrier outsdie the venue. Shelley, Kim, Priscilla and friends have gone, Tony's given up, but Emma and Jennie are hanging on.

11.37pm: Emma bites her fingernails. Roadies are packing up, two Top Guards are hanging around. "I know him," someone says, "he's Johnny Dean's brother."

"Hey you," Emma tries to shout, "are you Johnny Dean's brother?"

At this time of night, even a security guard who looks a bit like the singer of Menswear's brother is better than nothing.

12.05am: The trucks are loaded and slowly turned away to make room for three black Mercs with black windows. All eyes are on the doors but it's only three women, no one famous, like. One trips over the barrier. Twenty teenie-girls start laughing.

"Bitch," Emma says, without a hint of jealousy. Three tramps have appeared behind her, one with a dog. The girls stroke the dog for a while.

"Isn't he cute. I love dogs," says Jennie.

"I thought you loved Bonehead," teases Emma. "The one with the cheesy breath."

"No, his breath is OK, it smells of cough [does she mean sweets or bile?]."

Talk of the devil. Bonehead appears. Jennie sees him and is surprisingly calm, then screams his name, and dashes off to see him from the other side. A minute later she's back, breatless, "I thnk he recognisd me. He probably thinks, 'Oh no, it's her, why won't she leave me alone?'"

12.32am: Liam comes out, trots to the car, Patsy at his side, black leather Kangol hat, unshaven, gives the fans a brief glazed look. The girls scream. He's got to talk to them this time, surely. No [must be the sore throat]. Still, he's cool, he's good looking, and he shall be forgiven whatever he does. Then Noel leaves. And this time it's all Egg-Meg's fault.

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c 1998 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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