The BRITS Awards, Earls Court, London, 19 February 1996.

"Who's the dick with the beard?" asked the record company executive's wife sitting next to me. I think I said something about him being all our past bundled up into The Big Now and barrelling into the future. "What, that guy who just won an award and, in front of several thousand people, is now distractedly demonstrating how to insert it into his own rectum?" You'd better believe it, kiddo. "Is it supposed to be funny?" Shhh. Listen to what he's got to say. And then he spoke: "I've only got one thing to say, 'Sausages.'"

LIAM GALLAGHER, THE DICK WITH THE BEARD, HAS HAD A WEIRD KIND OF YEAR. Christ, it unravelled all over the place. At the BRITS, Oasis won the awards for Best Band, Best Album(Morning Glory) and Best Video ("Wonderwall"). Tony Blair and John Prescott came up to say hello, both grateful for the messages of support that the band, lifelong socialists, had given to the Labour Party. And success was all the sweeter considering that a year before, when Oasis had refused to play at the ceremony, they had been gravely warned by the event's organisers that they would never be allowed back again. "They're pissed off that we won this time," Noel Gallagher told me.
"That's twice now. So we won't be invited back. The sad thing is, they think we care. Fuck 'em."
Liam was, as ever, caught up in the obliterative importance of the moment.
Why did you just do that on stage?
"Do what?"
You know.
"I'm mad for it."
It's a catch-all phrase that he really does use all the time. But, more importantly, it's an essential marker for any sort of under- standing of just what Liam Gallagher is all about. If you don't get it this very second, you never will.

The Oasis high jinks at the BRITS were overshadowed by Pulp's Jarvis Cocker. For attempting to interrupt Michael Jackson's creepy mediocrity, Cocker got thrown in jail for a few hours and took up the tabloid column inches the next day. On his release from custody in the early hours of the morning, he came back to Oasis's party at the Landmark Hotel on London's Marylebone Road. "I'd have punched the fucker," said Noel.
"Are you all right?" asked Liam.
Yeah, The Dick With The Beard. That one.

I LOVE LIAM GALLAGHER. AND I HARDLY KNOW HIM AT ALL.

This despite the fact that I'm closer to him than any other journalist on earth. Not, maybe, that much of a boast, since most journalist have- quite rightly-been kept out of any intimate relationship with the band. I can't pretend to be closer than many of the old friends, like Paul Bardsley or Dave Coates or Youngy, or any of the others that he grew up with and spiralled away from as a result of the sublime cocktail of luck, fate and determination that yanks One Of Us into One Of Them. But over the last three years, I've known him bet- ter than a whole heap of others. I saw Oasis rehearse in July 1993, watched them go from small-time chancers to the biggest rock band on the planet in the space of three years. Hey, I wrote the book. And, while I've been lucky enough to achieve the ambition of any music writer-to "discover" a band who change the world-I've got even more satisfaction from the personal, private inspiration that Oasis, particularly Liam and Noel, have given me ove the past three years. They're friends. And catalysts for a personal redis- covery of faith that I'm not about to reveal, even to them. Importantly, the relationship between the band and those around them will never spill into public self-analysis. Secrets are there to be kept. Still, there's a few cracks of light worth investigating.

THOSE OF US WHO'VE SEEN IT HAPPENING STILL WAKE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WHISPERING "what the fuck is this?"
The band themselves discreetly admit that they do just the same.
So who is The Dick With The Beard?
What are you all about, Liam?
"I don't know. And I don't want to know. If I'm, like, 90, I'll know a lot more. Right now, I'm young, I'm doing what I'm doing and I love doing it."
That was in March 1995. Oasis were recording "Some Might Say", the song that was about to be their first ever number one single. Loco Studios, in the middle of the resty, corrugated-iron farmland country half an hour's drive from Newport, was way away from the urban buzz that always seemed to feel Oasis's sound, but offered an opportunity to share in the self-contained fireworks of the band's creativity.
Over the course of a weekend, they wrote and recorded three songs and let me help out bandclaps. Noel explained to me the difference between himself and Liam.
"Liam's always questioning everything, looking for answers," he said. "With me it's, like, life's just a load of questions. If I don't find the answers, then fuck it, they'll turn up later on. Our kid doesn't want that, he just wants to know all the answers right now, this minute."

THUNDERSTORMS IN SOUTH LONDON NEVER MAKE THINGS ANY BETTER. This one in late July '96 battered Oasis's surprisingly small rehearsal studio as they planned for forth coming gigs at Loch Lomond and Knebworth, the latter shows destined to be the biggest ourdoor performances in British rock history. I was distraught at just having beard of the death the night before of my friend, Rob Collins from The Charlatans. It was the first wake-up call for the bands of our generation, and intimations of mortality bung heavily over what should have been an invigorated Oasis. They were all sad, particularly Noel, but saw death as just another reminder to celebrate life.
"I had a brilliant holiday the other week," said Liam, "and I realised it's been a long time since I just took time off and chilled out. We've played solidly for, like, three years, and just got caught up in all that. We've never given a fuck about what people say about us in the papers or what records companies say we should do. We just play the gigs and get into the fans coming along to see us. It's the fans that matter."
Four months earlier they'd played Maine Road, their biggest and most ambitious gigs to date and two nights that will always be remembered by those close to them as their finest, purest preformances.
"I watched 'Antiques Roadshow' before the gig," said Liam. "To be honest, that's all I can remember. I know they were top gigs, though."
And Knebworth.
"Well, what can we do after that? Play the moon or something?"
The moon?
"Yeah, Im mad for the moon."
When he's mad for it, you can't help but get caught up in the stratosphere-skipping possibilities.
Sitting in the palatial Creation hospitality tent with Liam before the Knebworth show, I asked him again what it was all about.
"This," he said, waving an arm around. "The event. The people. Everything."
Kate Moss, sitting next to us, agreed. "This is the just the best thing ever," she said.
The next day the Daily Mirror begged to differ, citing overpriced burgers and a general lack of passion to preceedings. It was the first real sign of tabloid savagery towards the band, and Liam in particular, that may yet turn out to be as ill-judged as The Sun's vicious cov- erage of the Hillsborough tragedy. For while Oasis have been easy targets for tabloid assaults, their alleged bad-boy cartoon personas aren't so far from the con stituency that defines the papers' readerships. When Oasis started, their strengh came from the way that their indie scally audience empathised with them. The fans, fiven half a chance, would do and say exactly the same. And as Oasis have embraced a wider audience, so they've also tapped into a general acceptance of melodically fuelled "rebellion".
"Right from the beginning, we've admit ted who we are and what we do," says Noel.
"We've said, 'Look we're lads from Manchester. We do drugs. We drink. We swear. And we make fucking great pop records.' The more people that like us the better."
Do you want to scare people, Liam?
"I'm arsed about all that. I want to be in Oasis and make records and be with the peopel I want to be with. That's it. I dont care about nothing else. Everyone else can fuck off."
You sort of know how he feels. Sort of.
The above quote was from Knebworth, just after he'd comman deered a glorified golf buggy and driven it straight over anyone about to get in his way. Without wanting to etch out any precise allegories, it's the way he's always wanted his life to be. It's not just the fact that Noel is older that makes him the far-sighted, considerate one. There's a difference in personalities, a combination that has made Oasis as successful as they are. Noel's the thinker, the genius songwriter with the tunes from the clouds and the (often frustrating)common sense. Liam's the bonkers one, the cross between Tasmanian Devil and long-lashed angel. You could never sum him up in a sentence and you'd be dumb to even attempt to. Writing abut him previously, though, I did sort of mumble: "He's the most complex person I know. And also the most spiritual. While he's undeniably gilty of regularly shitty behaviour, he's also precociously aware of life's thunderously intangible subtleties. He goes for it, vindicated by his youth and an acknowlegement that he's a personification of the classic rock'n'roll star. And when he's wrong you can't expect him to admit it until the speedway inside his head has slowed sufficiently to reveal the world outside as more than just an impressionistic blur."
In his book, Bothers, elder sibling Paul perceptively suggested that Liam's general appeal might stem from something even more intensely experienced within the Gallagher family.
"I think Noel sees restraints in everything," writes Paul. "In life, relationships, places and times. That's what we both secretly admire Liam for; there's a wildness about him, a sense of freedom. It's like he expresses how Noel and I felt inside and if sometimes Liam can't quite keep alid o his dissatisfaction, he's probably healthier than the two of us because of it."
In other words, Mad For It. It makes a whole heap of the band. And everything that goes wrong for Oasis is convolutedly traced to her and her evil intentions. Absolute bullocks, of course. In fact, meeting Pasty has been the best thing that's happened to Liam since the band started. While she's often perceived as being cold, distant and perhaps rather too demure for frue party animal status, in reality she can go for it with the best of them. Indeed they first swapped phone numbers after a particularly wild night out in Manchester.
Nevertheless, she's also brought an element of stability and responsibitity to Liam's life, something that he may not always have been able to handle too easily, but certainly not for the want of trying. While their spats get all the publicity, the fact that their relationship has endured for so long has been down to the time they spend together that no one sees. Not even those close to the couple. Sure, they fight, but she gives as good as she gets and the bottom line is that they are both genuinely in love with each other.
The past few months have seen a great strain put not only on their relationship, but on the future of the group itself. It all seemed so bright back in the summer as the band played a triumphant weekedn at Knebworth, but in retrospect, such was the scale of the success, trouble was always going to ensue.
The prospect then of an American tour kicking off another six months of global wandering ws something that none of the band were exactly gagging for. Liam baled out at the last minute, genuinely claiming that he had to find a house for when he got back, but also less then thrilled at the prospect of an American tour. The American industry, controlled largely by corporate dolts, is happier with its dumb, home-grown talent than any boat-rocking British invasion. At the MTV awards in New York, the band were bored, frustrated and abusive. It may not have been big or clever, but at least it showed a certian uncontainable spirit, a marked contrast to the rest of the polite, blank acts on show.

A couple of days later I witnessed the band playing at Jones Beach, Long Island to an audience less than thrilled by a performance that, atfer Knebworth even the band seemed to treat as something of an anti-climax. There ws a general air of tiredness, a lack of spring in their step. It ws no surprise when they caome home a few days later, althought it must be noted that Liam did initially want to stay. Like the others, he maintains an intense loyalty to the fans even if he thinks the industry ifself sucks.

Ony Noel and Liam know what happened to finally convince them to come home and indefinitely cancel their touring plans. And neither of them are telling. What is clear is that they were aware that carrying on with their touring could have completely torn the band apart. Better perhaps to take a break and work on the third album, due for release sometime later this year. Demos suggest that it will be their best year yet, a return to a fierce rock sound and a revitalising force for their future.

So where does this leave Liam?
He's still, in the eyes of the tabloids, a cartoon bad boy, his problems exacerbated by his recent run-in with the law for alleged drug possession, an esisode that many feel may have been engineered by the tabloids themselves. Nevertheless, it was something he could have done without in a year of wildly fluctuating fortune. No one is going to expect Liam Gallagher's personality to radically alter overnight, indeed it's exactly who and what he is that makes Oasis so extraordinary, but there are signs of a grow- ing maturity, a determined attempt to take a step back from all the mayhem. He and Patsy stay at home, play with her kid, just chill out. It's been a wobbly path, but he finally seems to be enjoing his universe of possibilities. And of course there's still time for fun. At the QAwards, he went up on stage to collect yet another of the many prizes the band have been awarded during the past 12 months. He passed a table occupied by Mick Jagger, bad boy of yore and a blueprint for much of Liam's own behaviour. Swaggering by, without pausing, Liam non- chalantly flicked the ask from his ciggarette on to Jagger's head. The Dick With The Beard done good. And we need him more more than ever.

A YEAR IN THE LIFE...WHAT THE TABLOIDS SAID IN 1996:
3 APRIL - Trouble on tour in Europe.

The Daily Mirror reports that "wild man Liam Gallagher rowed with managers, swore at onlookers and even slagged off his own band in a drunken foul-mouthed outburst". The paper catalogues Liam's "trial of havoc" in his 200 pound sterling-a-might suite at the Park Hotel in Grenoble: "A glass lamp lay shattered on the floor, a TV was upside down, a table was smashed." However, the report also includes comment from the hotel's head porter: "We have a lot of rock groups staying here. We have had no more trouble with Oasis than we did With Demis Roussos."

5 AUGUST - OASIS RANT AT DJ EVANS, reports The Sun. The band were said to be "fuming after carrot- topped Chris joked that Liam's fiancee Pasty Kensit, 28, was pregnant" and during their Loch Lonmond gig they "unleashed an astonishing foul-mouthed attack" on him. Liam's contribution goes: Oi, t***y face. She's not f***ing pregnant, so shut it, you ginger b*****d. You're f***king getting it. Come back stage and meet me, you f***ing ginger b*****d." Evens is reported to have left before the end of the show.

27 AUGUST - A week after pulling out of the band's MTV Unplugged show, apparently because of a sore throat, Liam walks out of Heathrow airport minutes before the band are due to leave for Chicago for their US tour. LIAM QUITS, reports The Sun, which also reports that Liam "insisted he was NOT quitting the band". Liam says he can't go on tour until he has found a new house: "I am Oasis, I started the F*****g band, I'm mad for it but I have to move house. I can't go looking for a house in America while I'm trying to perform to silly f*****g yanks."

6 SEPTEMBER - "America sickened by obscene Liam's spitting rampage." reports The Sun after Liam's appearance at the MTV awards show. "Oasis wildman Liam Gallagher was branded a desgrace last night," the paper continues, adding that "pop pundits" are the opinion he has reined the band's chances of success in the US by "SWEARING and insulting the audience with lewd lyrics, SPITTING a huge lump of saliva on to the stage, and HURLING an open can of beer into the crowd." Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Liam comments, "I thought the show was s**t but that our performance was outstanding."

8 SEPTEMBER - "Devastated" Cerice Blakeley, 25 tell the News of the World of her DRUG AND SEX HELL WITH LIAM. "Oasis wildman Liam Gallagher dragged his fiancee on to a rollercoaster of sex and drugs then dumped her in tears," he paper reports. Cerice met Liam in 1992 and it was love at first sight. The pair moved in together and "their sex was often fuelled by deadly cocaine". Liam dumped her two years ago.

13 SEPTEMEBER - BLOWASIS is The Sun's front page headline as it announces that: pop giants Oasis have snsationally split up after a row between Noel and Liam Gallagher erupted into a furious fist- fight". The paper reports that "tearful Liam Gallagher rang mum Peggy from the US before the split and told her: "I've had enough-I can't go on. It's just not working- we all want to come home to Manchester. I can't go on and it's a nightmare. We've been fighting a lot.'" However, it would appear that "tense-looking Peggy" has not in fact spoken to the paper. She told reporters, "I have got nothing to say" before hurrying inside her semi.

27 OCTOBER - PATSY GIVES BOOZY LIAM THE BOOT, reports the News of the World. The paper claims Liam refused to take Patsy's calls while he was working on the band's new album at Abbey Road Studios. After trying to get through to him for two hours, she apparently dictated a note saying: "Thanks a lot for you concern. You can shove MTV up your ****. I hope you have a great week sh****** birds with your mates and you won't be seeing me again."

7 NOVEMBER - "A girl fan told yesterday how Oasis superstar Liam Gallagher bit her on the NOSE at a concert," reports The Sun. Gaynor Simonelli, a 26-year-old nanny, tells the paper that she met Liam at an Ocean Colour Scene gig at the Hammersmith Palais. "Helunged at me with this huge open mouth, screamed 'Aaaarghhh' and bet me on the nose and lip. It made my eyes water. He must have been drinking- or something." Police decided the incident was not worth pursuing.

10 NOVEMBER - "Oasis wildman Liam Gallagher's face was contorted with fury as he rained vicious blows on reporter Sean O'Brien," say the News of the World, whose journalist confronted the singer with a photo of him with "a raven-haired beauty". Liam apparently screamed, "I didn't snog no bird, man!" The paper goes on to the seemingly less important matter of Liam's arrest in Oxford Street hours later on suspicion of possessing cocaine. A "police source" say, "When officers approached him he had difficulty focusing on them but said, "It's nothing to do with you. I'm fine. I'm OK.' But they weren't satistied. They thought he might have been a vagrant."