To a very big house in the country, full of Noel Gallagher and his friends, where Noel has decided to turn 50 in order to frighten people who were teenagers in the Britpop era into sorting out their lives.
The Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds star, most famous for his High Flying Birds hit AKA … What a Life!, appears to have accrued quite a few famous friends along the way. At times, being at Oxfordshire’s Aynhoe Park was like flipping through a copy of the Face from 1995: Woody Harrelson, Sadie Frost, Bobby Gillespie, Mike Pickering, Stella McCartney, Damon Albarn. At other times, it was like flipping through Q magazine from 1995: Bono, Chrissie Hynde, Johnny Marr, Lars Ulrich, Mani from the Stone Roses. And at still other times it was like flipping though a copy of Theo Hutchcraft From Hurts magazine: Theo Hutchcraft. From Hurts.
Noel had themed his party around Netflix’s Narcos. The series is about the life of Pablo Escobar, the man who popularised cocaine in Miami. As distinct from Noel Gallagher, the man who popularised cocaine in Milton Keynes retail assistant circles.
The theme was loose – no sign of the traditional Narcos party game of “swallow the condom full of flour” – but there was a painted backboard which featured Noel with a moustache in a junta uniform, framed with the heading: El Presidente.
In the week that Manuel Noriega passed, Lost in Showbiz realised that we would all like to live in a narco-kleptocracy run by Noel Gallagher. Sadly, at his half-century, and with no jungle republic in his sights right now, it feels like his infinite capacity to distract the common people from the lack of basic sanitation by saying something outrageous about Katy Perry is a life goal he may never live to see realised.
Among the list of celebs who turned up – did we mention Russell Brand, Bob Geldof, Michael Fassbender, Poppy Delevingne, Alicia Vikander and Serge Pizzorno? – was Madonna. Yet she was apparently never invited. It appeared that, as Madonna, she had never been told “no” before and wasn’t about to start now.
It’s a strange coincidence that leads to images of Madge prowling the Oxfordshire countryside in her car, like an M25 ring road raver from 1991, scanning the dials, trying to figure out where she could find some throbbing bass.
Madonna and Bono took a joint selfie, which Madonna tagged with the line: “Worlds collided at Noel Gallagher’s birthday bash!” They certainly did, in the sci-fi sense that Madonna had been sent forward in time from circa 1997, whereas the Irishman whose passport says Paul Hewson had been allowed to age normally.
Most naive observers have got it into their heads that Bono and Noel are sworn enemies. Mainly because the same 90s music journalists who spent the decade eulogising Noel also spent the same period sniffing, “Urgh, Bono”, any time the letter U or number 2 came into their field of vision. Perhaps it’s also because Noel has been less kind in public about the Irish singer: “Play One, shut the fuck up about Africa.”
In reality, the pair are fast friends. Noel has long praised Bono’s “brilliant company”. “I’ve been drinking with him, and I’ve been leaving a bar at six in the morning and he’s on the bar singing opera. And he’s got a fucking gig the following night with 70,000 people. And I’m being escorted out like James Brown.”
His reconciliation with Damon Albarn has been more publicised. To the point where Noel guested on Damon’s latest Gorillaz sessions. Damon has returned the favour by not guesting on Noel’s latest release.
Yet for all the armistice vibes, one parka-clad Mancunian gobshite remained notable by his absence. But then, milestones have a way of making you draw yourself up to a maturity that goes beyond the petty wounds of long ago: “Happy 50th rkid stay young LG x,” Liam tweeted on the big day. The next day, he explained he was only trying to flag up Noel’s great age. “I wanted to remind everyone he’s an old fart now. You know, the old 1.6 million followers.”
He went on to moan that their mum, Peggy Gallagher, hadn’t been invited. Mancunian-Irish seventysomething Peggy is not widely known for her interest in hoovering white powder off the kitchen counters while asking Helena Christensen what she does for a living, but it sure is a nice thought.
