Over 100 Hours of Rare Oasis Tapes Set for £1.6m Auction

Oasis fans, get ready for a trip down memory lane. Over 100 hours of rare Oasis recordings concerts, rehearsals and those raw, unfiltered chats between Noel and Liam are about to hit the auction block, with a price tag that could reach £1.6 million. The band might not be thrilled, but for collectors, this is pure gold.

This treasure trove comes courtesy of Huw Richards, the band’s sound engineer from the Definitely Maybe days through to 2001. We’re talking 209 DAT tapes, 73 cassettes and three MiniDiscs—painstakingly collected and now up for grabs thanks to Richards’ son, Owain.

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Littleton Auctions in Evesham, Worcestershire, has slapped a guide price of £1.2m to £1.6m on the archive, with the sale set for 3 October.

Ben Homer, the auction house’s managing director, said Oasis had expressed concerns about the sale:

“The Oasis camp is aware of the auction and has expressed concerns, which is entirely understandable given the scale and significance of the material”

Among the highlights? The only known full recording of Oasis’s legendary 1996 Loch Lomond gig. There’s also a stack of rehearsal tapes, soundchecks and those behind-the-scenes moments with the Gallaghers and their crew that fans rarely get to hear.

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But before you start dreaming of bootleg releases, remember: Oasis still hold the rights. Whoever wins the auction can’t just drop these tracks online or cash in without the band’s say-so.

Littleton Auctions is calling the collection a landmark record of the band’s live legacy, and reckons it could tempt collectors, scholars and even museums.

Ellis Douglas
Editor, BritRock Heaven