om wall. In
             addition to their love of football, the lads also became engrossed with
             rock'n'roll. Both Noel and Liam were big fans of tubby '70s glamrocker
             Alvin Stardust. "When he came on telly they'd mime along and pretend to
             be Alvin," their father remembers, "and I'd always catch them singing into
             hairbrushes and playing air guitar." Most important to Noel's musical
             growth was the North's all-time greatest band, the Beatles. Like many
             youngsters, the songsmith first fell in love with the Fab Four via their Red
             and Blue hits collections, and they formed the basis of his musical
             "I was about six when I started hearing the Red Album " he recalled in an
             interview "They're songs to grow up with, really...The Red Album
             documents the Beatles as the greatest pop band ever and The Blue Album
             documents them as the greatest rock band ever."
             Noel's school life was problematic at best. While he was plainly a bright
             young man, he battled with a minor case of dyslexia, which, topped with
             the poor quality of Manchester's schools, was a dangerous combination.
             "School didn't really hold anything for me," he explained later. "I knew
             from a very early age what I wanted to be, I wanted to be a musician."
             A chronic childhood kidney infection gave Noel his first taste of standing
             apart from the crowd. Because of his ailment, young Noel was not
             required to adhere to his primary scho
             ...