Excess All Areas? Not If You're Oasis

Their new documentary Lord Don't Slow Me Down suggests that life on the road isn't all sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Are they just getting old, or is touring really boring?

On the road with Oasis: an endless bacchanal where the non-stop boozing, drugging and other bad behaviour only halts when Man City are on Sky Sports, right?

Not according to the band's new tour documentary Lord Don't Slow Me Down. Filmed during the world tour of 2005-6, Lord... serves as final proof that even Britpop's hedonistic elite now prefer an early night to dusk-til-dawn sessions discussing aliens with Kasabian.

"The years of kissing the sky and drinking champagne out of cowboy boots at 10 o'clock in the morning are all gone" admits Noel, with a hint of regret. As if to prove it, the Oasis dressing room is at it's most frenzied during - of all things - a fiercely contested bout of 70s board game Frustration.

The sad truth, of course, is that after a while touring in a rock'n'roll band becomes as crushingly monotonous as any other job. Artfully contrived videos might give the impression that backstage areas are a crazed combination of the Hellfire Club and Turner's pad in Performance , but sadly the reality is far more mundane.

Take a peak behind the curtain and you'll often get a lot less than you bargained for. I once rushed backstage to congratulate Radiohead on their first ever performance of the Bends , only to find them in total silence, huddled around a kettle.

Visit any of the latest indie icons after a rapturously received gig, and chances are you'll be faced with a bunch of exhausted musicians sipping warm lager under strip lights whilst, if you're lucky, a roadie knocks up a joint on a discarded copy of Nuts.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk