The guitar that broke up Oasis - or at least the guitar that broke when Oasis split up - is going up for auction.
Noel Gallagher’s red 1960 Gibson ES-355 was smashed during the altercation with his brother Liam backstage at the Rock En Seine festival in France in 2009. Noel’s most used instrument, he once said that it was “the best guitar I ever had”.
So loved was it that he had it restored in 2011 and then played it with his current band Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. However, according to reports, he subsequently decided to get rid of the guitar because it was so closely associated with Oasis and brought back bad memories.
The auction is being held by the Artpèges gallery, alongside other rock memorabilia. The gallery’s co-founder Jonathan Berg says: “Artpèges gallery seeks out objects that can stand the test of time. Each object or instrument that you will discover at this auction belongs to the history of music, past, present and future. This guitar crystallises a specific moment in the history of music”.
The guitar has a starting price of 150,000 euros, and the gallery is hoping that it will reach as much as 500,000 euros. It goes up for sale on 17 May.