Oasis’ 100-Hour “Unreleased Tapes” Auction Canceled at Last Minute — Here’s Why

“Unreleased recordings” seeking 2.9 billion won draw Gallagher brothers’ legal challenge

Rare, unreleased recordings by British Britpop legends Oasis vanished just before they were due to go up for auction. The band took legal action, blocking the sale of archival material valued at an astronomical sum.

Littleton Auctions in Britain has decided to remove Oasis’ unreleased recording tapes from the final catalog for a special popular-music auction scheduled for Oct. 3, the BBC and other major foreign media outlets reported on the 30th, local time.

The tapes were recorded by Hugh Richards, who worked as the band’s sound engineer during its heyday from 1994 to 2001. They contain more than 100 hours of material, including recordings of 63 live performances, soundchecks before shows and candid spoken exchanges between brothers Noel Gallagher and Liam Gallagher, making them exceptionally rare.

The auction house estimated the unprecedented archive could fetch as much as £1.6 million, or about 2.9 billion won, drawing the attention of collectors around the world. But Oasis immediately pursued aggressive legal action, including an injunction application, ultimately derailing the auction.

Dramatic reunion after 15 years turns past legacy into copyright dispute

The person who consigned the tapes to the auction was identified as Owain, the son of sound engineer Richards. He told local media that “Oasis filed a lawsuit against my father and me to prevent the sale” and that “we agreed to temporarily postpone the consignment to resolve the legal dispute in an orderly and transparent manner.”

Oasis, formed in Manchester in 1991, became an icon of its era with a string of megahits, including “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” But deep tensions between the Gallagher brothers brought the band to a breaking point in 2009, setting it on a path to disbandment.

After a long hiatus, the brothers recently officially announced a dramatic reunion after 15 years and teased a 2025 world tour, generating intense interest across the global music industry. The band’s revival is also expected to usher in a new phase in disputes over the copyright and ownership of its past legacy.