Champagne Supernova: Oasis in Paris

 

Paris, February 2002 was the end of an era. The post 9-11 reality had eclipsed the wild Champagne Supernova nineties. The troops were in Afghanistan, the dot.com bubble had burst, the economy was in recession, the Patriot Act was in and liberty was on the way out. Napster changed the way we shared music, and digital photography was about to replace film.

 

These images were made over two days for a CD booklet which was never printed, so they remained hidden in my archive until David Walker at the Oasis Collectors Group asked me to create a book to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Heathen Chemistry. They are shown here as they were laid out for the book.

 

Oasis were extraordinary to photograph, still overbrimming with the swagger and bravado of their previous successes, but the cracks that would explode their champagne supernova were already showing.

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