FOR any Lostock and Horwich residents unfamiliar with Oasis, it must have seemed an extremely odd sight to watch thousands of swaggering young lads heading for the Reebok stadium on Saturday afternoon. More than four hours before the band were actually due to perform, hundreds of fans had crushed themselves in front of the stage. Dozens of others remained outside the stadium perfecting their Liam-type swagger or playing impromptu football among the hot-dog stands.

The audience was undoubtedly male in the main and the fact many of them were in their teens or early 20s made for a fever pitched atmosphere even early on in the proceedings.

Watching from the relative safety of the stands, it was amusing to observe the crowd edge nearer to the front and become increasingly crushed together every time a human being happened to walk on the stage for whatever reason, even if only moving equipment from one side to another.

Scores of people had to be lifted from the front of the stage before Oasis even started to play through exhaustion and sheer lack of space.

A popular pursuit among the crowd was hurling plastic pint glasses as far as possible while they still contained beer . . . not a fun experience to be on the receiving end of. There were minor punch-ups at regular intervals among the rougher elements of the audience.

A scuffle even broke out in the queue for a burger, but as with all the other skirmishes, the security staff soon had things under control. Nobody was ever in danger of being hurt and there was little trouble of note.

The award for the biggest attention seeker of the day had to go to the lad who managed to dodge security staff and scaled a lighting and speaker mast only a few tracks into the Oasis set.

Of course, Liam did not like being upstaged and shouted -- we have deleted the expletive -- "Oi Elvis, get off the speakers'' before inciting a chant of "Who are you?'' among the audience.

The fan, who must have had a good head for heights, stayed at the top of the mast for a good 10 minutes before being coaxed down by security staff.

A slightly more popular attention seeker appeared to be the female fan who was so overcome with excitement that she decided to lift up her top and show Liam her charms.

Showing 33,000 people your naked chest is always bound to prove popular, especially when the streaking act is projected onto a huge screen.

The Oasis experience was certainly one of the biggest events to ever hit Bolton and will hopefully lead the way for more bands to also appear at the Reebok.

The crowds left feeling happy and hoarse after singing to all their favourite songs and hopefully the residents of Lostock and Horwich were not too disturbed by the hundreds of Liam lookalikes on the loose.