An archive of more than 100 hours of unheard Oasis recordings — including candid, unfiltered conversations between Noel and Liam Gallagher — is heading to auction on October 3 with a guide price of up to £1.6 million. The band, by every account so far, do not want it sold.
The collection has been dubbed The Desk Tapes, and it is not a fan’s bootleg stash. It was built by Huw Richards, the sound engineer who worked with Oasis from the release of their 1994 debut Definitely Maybe until 2001, and who recorded it straight off the mixing desk night after night. In practical terms that means the cleanest possible source: not a microphone smuggled into a crowd, but the board feed itself.
The scale is unusual. According to The Guardian, the archive runs to 209 DAT tapes, 73 analogue cassettes and three MiniDiscs. NME reports it contains 63 concert recordings alongside more than 100 hours of rehearsals, soundchecks and what the listing calls “unfiltered dialogue” between the brothers and members of the touring crew.
Among it is what is believed to be the only surviving recording of the band’s 1996 concert on the banks of Loch Lomond in Scotland — an open-air show from the same summer as Knebworth, when Oasis were arguably the biggest band in the world and, notably, from an era before every person in a crowd carried a recording device in their pocket.
The sale also takes in internal tour itineraries, original setlists, an Epiphone guitar played by the band, an original Kangol Oasis Tour parka, and a pair of Adidas Kegler Super Ostrich trainers gifted to Noel Gallagher.
The disagreement, and where the accounts diverge
The tapes are being sold by Owain Richards, Huw’s son, who is also a sound engineer. He told The Times that he had been in discussions with Oasis’s management a few years ago, after the band sought some of the recordings, but that those talks ultimately “fizzled away.”
“They don’t want these tapes to be sold through anyone else,” Richards said. “They want them back in their possession.”
He described his father’s preservation of the material as meticulous, and called the archive “a piece of history.” He also said the audio remains in good enough condition to be mastered into a live album.
Littleton Auctions, the Evesham firm handling the sale, does not dispute that the band are unhappy — but frames it more softly. Managing director Ben Homer said in a statement to the Guardian and The Independent: “The Oasis camp is aware of the auction and has expressed concerns, which is entirely understandable given the scale and significance of the material.”
“We’re handling everything with full transparency and proper legal process,” he added. “Our focus is simply on presenting these items responsibly, with verified provenance, and allowing collectors and institutions to engage with an important part of British music history.”
That gap is worth noting. The characterization of Oasis as wanting the tapes “back in their possession” comes from the seller, not from the band. The auction house confirms only that concerns were raised. Oasis themselves have said nothing publicly: both the Guardian and NME approached representatives for comment, and as of publication no statement has been issued by the band or their management. Every account of what Noel and Liam actually think is currently second-hand.
Why a buyer may not get what they think they are buying
There is a catch that shapes the entire sale, and it is the reason this is not simply a story about a large sum of money.
Oasis retain the intellectual property rights to the recordings. Whoever wins the lot will own the physical tapes — the DATs, the cassettes, the MiniDiscs — but cannot commercially exploit any of it without the band’s cooperation. No live album, no streaming release, no official reissue.
So the winning bidder is buying one of two things: a museum-grade artifact to be preserved and never heard beyond a private room, or a negotiating position opposite a band that has already signalled it would rather have the material back. Littleton has said the collection could interest collectors, scholars and museums, which reads as an acknowledgement of exactly that limitation.
It also sharpens the ethical question underneath the legal one. The concert recordings are performances Oasis gave in public. The soundchecks and the private conversations between two brothers whose relationship was, for years, famously combustible are something else — moments captured by a trusted employee doing his job, now being sold to the highest bidder three decades later. Legality and comfort are not the same thing, and the auction house has only claimed the first.
Timing
The row has landed in an unusually busy week. On September 5, Noel and Liam appeared together at the Venice Film Festival for the premiere of Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, the documentary chronicling their 2024 reunion and the Live ’25 stadium tour. It drew an eight-minute standing ovation, and marked the brothers’ first off-stage public appearance together since the band reformed.
The film’s UK premiere took place in London on September 7, with a worldwide theatrical run beginning September 9 and North American screens following on September 11. Reports of a 2027 UK and European tour, including a rumored Knebworth return and a Manchester residency, continue to circulate without confirmation.
The Desk Tapes go under the hammer at Littleton Auctions on October 3, with a guide price of between £1.2 million and £1.6 million.
