From million-dollar auction sales to unbelievable yard sale finds, legendary gear has been bought, sold, acquired, and lost through many bizarre means.
Engineer Nick Brine, however, remarkably got Oasis’ iconic WonderWall guitar straight from the source, after his own cherished acoustic guitar had been mistakenly destroyed during a Gallagher brother bust-up.
Brine had first worked with the band on (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and returned to the studio for its 1997 Abbey Road-recorded follow-up, Be Here Now.
As the millennium beckoned and Britpop hit fever pitch, the swaggering Mancunians were at the height of their powers – but so too was the Gallagher brotherly rivalry that underpinned it. Brine’s guitar would get caught in the crossfire.
“It was the morning after a heavy night and Liam was worse for wear,” Brine tells the BBC ahead of the band’s hotly-anticipated return to the stage.
“Noel had said something about him in the papers and Liam kicked off. I’m in Abbey Road’s famous Studio Two setting up equipment and hungover myself, then looking up I saw a guitar come flying over from the control room.
“It was Noel’s Fender Jag and it smashed to bits,” he continues. “I ran to the control room and Liam also made a big dent in Abbey Road’s mixing desk.”
No stranger to the chaotic and often violent turns that the Gallagher brothers’ relationship repeatedly amounted to, Brine kept his distance. But the guitars kept coming.
“Then I see another acoustic guitar flying over the top and in a thousand pieces on the floor,” he says, “and realize that’s my guitar.”
Despite seeing his cheap ’70s Fender disintegrate before his eyes, Brine stuck to the tried and tested plan.
“I thought it best if I didn’t say anything. Noel came in and said, ‘What the hell is going on?’ It kicked off.
“Noel saw his guitar smashed up, then pointed to my smashed guitar and said, ‘Whose is that?’ Liam replies, ‘That’s your guitar too,’ to which Noel replies, ‘It ain’t mine!’”
“I sheepishly put my hand up and said, ‘Actually Liam, it’s mine.’ Then there was a big argument about who was going to buy me a new one. I told them it’s not valuable but it has quite sentimental value as my mum gave it to me.”
Liam felt a trip to London’s music store-lined Denmark Street, where Brine could buy “whatever guitar I wanted”, would prove sufficient compensation. Noel had other ideas.
“Noel replied to Liam, ‘What the hell do you know about guitars?’” Brine remembers. “There was another kick-off about who was going to buy me a new one.”
In the end, Noel convinced Liam to call Brine’s mother and apologize profusely for the guitar’s destruction. Then they handed him a piece of history: the Takamine Acoustic that had famously stared during their blockbuster Knebworth show and on MTV Unplugged. It was also used to track WonderWall.
Auction houses have guessed it could be with up to £100,000 (approx. $140,000) if Brine were to sell it, and he’s had to take out insurance on it, just in case. But that estimation may be a little meager, considering Noel Gallagher’s Definitely Maybe Les Paul sold for nearly double its $100k estimate last year.
“I was gobsmacked,” Brine says. “I said, ‘It’s OK, it’s fine,’ but Noel insisted I take it. It more than made up for the smashed guitar, I couldn’t believe it.”
A score of Oasis alumni are rumored to be participating in the band’s hotly anticipated reunion – one former bass player has already confirmed – while Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock says he turned down the chance to fill that bass role once after being disappointed by their live show.
