Dawson was there to greet it, with open arms and cash in hand.
"It was like Christmas morning for me!" Dawson said. "I picked up my copy from an independent stall at 10 o'clock. No scenes to report but I think brisk business was being done; a definite feeling of excitement in the air."
For months and months, Oasis and its camp had been preparing its fans for the release of the band's third album. When the clock struck 8 a.m. Thursday, Gallagher brothers-time, hundreds of anxious fans poured into record shops around the country reaching for copies.
At Tower Records' Picadilly Circus store about 50 people lined up waiting to get their hands on the disc of the day. "We sold 35 CDs in 10 minutes," an employee who went only by Armando said. "But then it tapered off a bit. There were more media people here than there were customers." Still, sales for the CD, which soared into the hundreds by noon, were steady all day at the centrally-located Picadilly Circus location.
With each train that pulled into the underground below came another load of Oasis-happy customers. Tower Records and virtually every record store in the country opened at 8 in the morning -- some for the first time ever -- to get a jump on sales.
Another employee at Tower said that with all the hype over the album it was
necessary to be prepared for the onslaught. And while he preferred the new Spiritualized and Prodigy LPs, he predicted Be Here Now to be
one of their biggest sellers ever for the store.
So far, his predictions seemed on target. By the end of the business day, the Picadilly Circus store estimated they had sold about 1,000 of the 10,000 copies in stock, the largest order in store history.
A smaller Tower Records on Kensington High St. had sold 185 copies of Liam and Noel Gallagher's latest foray into Beatlesesque pop and Stonesy blues rock by 5 p.m. And while there was no line there for the 8 a.m. opening, employees reported they had been doing brisk business all day.
The Our Price chain's 8 a.m. opening, said to be the first in store history, began a day that was virtually all Oasis. Stores have the Oasis album on permanent rotation over their sound systems and were expected to keep it playing all day long, saturating customers with that Liam Gallagher grunt.
In Liverpool, home of a certain quartet that some say sound a lot like the
bratty Brit-poppers, Lee, an employee for Probe Records said his store had sold
all five copies of Be Here Now they had ordered on CD, but that there
were still five copies available on vinyl. "The vinyl just doesn't seem to
sell very well for this type of music," he said.
Meanwhile, the local HMV, Our Price and Tower stores, which opened early for Oasis, did not experience the rush of customers like in London, Lee added. Whether they cued up early or not, it's a given that many fans were simply glad to finally have a listen to the highly anticipated CD they'd heard so much about.
Dawson certainly was. After one play through, he was hooked. "This album is miles better than (What's The Story) Morning Glory?. Noel has created a masterpiece, a real classic.
"It deserves to do very well in the States," he added. "And if it doesn't, then I guess it just proves once and for all that Americans just don't 'get' Oasis."
Americans will have their chance to 'get' Oasis on Tuesday. Just how early is still uncertain. American record stores have, on occasion, stayed open past midnight so they could sell a highly anticipated new release. However calls to the Virgin Megastore and Tower Records in the U.S., which don't plan to open their doors at the stroke of 12, indicate that some retailers at least assume that fans would rather have a good night's sleep before they plink down their hard-earned cash the next morning.
