The sound of incoming glory
Before the stadiums, before the Brit Awards outbursts, and before being dubbed the last great rock ‘n’ roll band of the 20th century, Oasis were a group of Manc lads ripping holes in rehearsal room walls with riffs and attitude. Deep buried on the B-side of the Live, cloudburst One of those early treasures, unadulterated, unreservedly feral, Forever single (1994). Before the myth solidified, Oasis is still rough, still starving, and seems to have everything to prove and no time to squander.
It does not saunter in. It bolts. Cloudburst trades the anthemic swing of their A-sides for something dirtier, messier: a nasty, full-tilt guitar onslaught from the outset. While McCarroll, at that point still behind the kit, plays with the restraint of a battering ram, Bonehead’s rhythm guitar drives like a bar brawl in quick forward motion. Still not the precise craftsman he would later become, Noel fires riffs like he’s attempting to break the strings and ignite the tape in a single shot.
Then there’s Liam. Young, venomous, with that recognizable sneer of a voice that could turn a nursery rhyme into a declaration of war. Here he is snarling through every line as though the microphone had just insulted his mum, spitting vowels like shards of glass. He’s not crooning here. The lyrics? Perhaps improvisational, nonsense, yet this is not the key. The point is conviction. Cloudburst also bleeds it.
Oasis is about the power of the moment, the belief that a song can change your life, even if it’s just for three minutes.
(John Harris, NME, 1994)
The freedom of this song is what makes it so captivating, not only its speed or aggression. Oasis were yet inhabiting council housing, still pinching equipment, still believing that superstardom was a question of faith instead of polish. A glimpse inside the eye of a band right before they became legendary, cloudburst feels like a garage door left swishing in the wind. It’s compulsive, not computed. You can almost hear the wall paint peeling.
Cloudburst was refreshing uncivilised in a decade characterized by irony and polished alternative rock. Too fast for the slow-burning melancholy that would sell millions, too sharp for the radio, but absolutely essential. The song never made it to an album. It need not to. Its legacy resides in what it stands for: Oasis, already certain of their invincibility and already acting like kings of the planet long before the world had given them the crown, already preparing for impact.
