Stand by me! Moment dozens of 'disabled' Oasis fans get out of wheelchairs and start dancing at comeback gig in 'biblical' scenes

Daily Mail​

3 days ago

Seeing Oasis play together again was the only miracle that fan Mark Chapman had expected to see this month – then the wheelchair users next to him stood up.
The 32–year–old, who has been unable to walk since the age of nine, has described the 'biblical' scenes at Manchester's Heaton Park as other fans in the accessible area abandoned their crutches when the Gallagher brothers took to the stage.
He suspects fans desperate to secure briefs for the band's reunion tour are to blame – after snapping them up from resellers who bought tickets meant for those with genuine disabilities and reselling them online.
Accessible area tickets for the show were on secondary resale site Viagogo for £634 each, and were sold in pairs, according to the SWNS news agency - despite companion tickets being added free of charge when booked officially.
Videos and images Mr Chapman shared online showed crutches and wheelchairs ditched in the raised seating area, which is intended for those unable to stand. Around him, dozens of people were on their feet.
The music superfan believes lax checks allowed those who had snapped up the resold ballots to enter while appearing to pretend they had a disability – before seemingly abandoning all pretence to boogie with the brothers.
He himself struggled to get tickets for the accessible area and ultimately had to buy standard tickets for himself and carer Sam Priest, who would normally be given a free ticket in order to accompany him.
The Oasis fan was later able to get a refund for Sam's ticket after he contacted organisers to explain the situation – and had to join a waiting list to enter the raised accessible area on the day itself.
He suspects people snapped up tickets for the accessible area via resale sites. Some were listed on Viagogo for £634 each - despite the fact carers go free with official vendors
He said: 'There were loads of people in wheelchairs and with crutches, but when Oasis came on they all jumped out their wheelchairs and dropped their crutches and stood up for the whole gig for two hours.
'Me being quite severely disabled, I know that standing up for two hours is very, very unlikely.'
Carer Sam added: 'We were joking Jesus Christ must have been on the platforms, there were so many miracles performed that night.'
Mark was diagnosed with life–shortening Duchenne muscular dystrophy when he was five years old.
The music podcaster, who went to over 100 gigs last year, has been an Oasis fan for 25 years and has seen Liam Gallagher perform live solo eight times.
So, when the band announced they were reuniting Mark, from Wilmslow in Cheshire, was ecstatic.
But he has since labelled the behaviour of those who appeared to feign disability 'appalling' and said their behaviour was tantamount to 'abuse'.
'The behavior of some attendees was unacceptable as they clearly weren't disabled,' he later said in a social media post.
He added: 'They were literally just standing for the whole time, they kept leaving the platform and joining their friends in front of the platform and leaving their wheelchairs behind and crutches behind, and when they went to the toilet.
'It's really frustrating. I could see people in front of the platform who were clearly struggling who had to stand there without a seat, and there were people on the platform who didn't need to be there.
'A lot of my friends applied who were also disabled and they didn't get any tickets whatsoever.
'It was frustrating knowing that there's people who needed to be there who couldn't.'
Similarly, a man with cerebral palsy who went viral earlier earlier this month after he was held aloft by fans to see the gig on Friday July 11 had been unable to get access to the accessible seating area.
Daniel Tester, 37, was held up by fellow Britpop fans to see the show after his sister Jemma was unable to get hold of the tickets meant for those with disabilities.
BBC News reports that Jemma had been 'unable to secure access' to the area for her brother, who uses a wheelchair.
Both fans say the gig was life–changing all the same – but questions remain over why fans with disabilities struggled to access the area meant for them while those who were seemingly not disabled could carry on with impunity.
The Oasis tour is continuing through the end of July and August in the UK and Ireland before heading across to North America. The Gallaghers then return to Wembley for further shows in September.
Accessible tickets for September shows at Edinburgh's Murrayfield Stadium are listed on Viagogo for up to £789, MailOnline found today.
The tickets are listed as being for the 'West Accessible' zone of the rugby stadium.
In the months ahead of the tour, Ticketmaster had vowed to cancel thousands of tickets that it believed had been listed for resale.
Briefs were being offered for amounts in excess of £7,000 after seemingly being snapped up by professional touts.
Some fans have opted not to even buy tickets for Oasis at all - instead climbing huge metal fences or even disguising themselves as litter pickers in order to see the shows.
The Government is currently mulling over how to tackle the problem of professional touting following a consultation earlier this year.