Rush for Oasis: know what I mean?

No maybe about it. The Gallagher brothers' new single is definitely heading for number one in the charts.

Released yesterday, the new Oasis single, "D'You Know What I Mean", has already sold thousands of copies, with some fans even beginning to queue on Sunday night to take advantage of a special midnight opening at 20 HMV stores.

In the Mancunian band's home town, 200 fans queued outside the HMV store, and a similar number did the same in Nottingham to enable them to buy a copy at the first opportunity. Mark Fletcher, manager of the Nottingham store, said several hundred people crowded into his shop during a 45-minute period to be the first owner of the record. "It's definitely outsold our expectations and is certain to do very well,"he said. "The publicity surrounding the new record has created a lot of awareness for the new album too which is due out in mid-August. Now our plan is to do this again and open at midnight for the album."

HMV anticipates selling 100,000 copies before the end of the week. "Every other single that is being bought is an Oasis single," said a spokesman.

A spokesman for the Virgin Megastore, in central London, said about 1,000 copies had already been sold, and he added: "We expect to sell 10,000 by the end of the week." The total figure for the chain's 76 UK stores would be about 50 000, he said.

Two other Virgin stores - in Aberdeen and Norwich - also opened at midnight. In Norwich, 326 copies were sold within 20 minutes.

Tower Records, in Piccadilly, had sold 323 copies of the single by mid- afternoon yesterday. "This is more than the number of singles we would sell for a whole weekend," said the head of the singles department. "Such sales are really unusual. Singles are not sold like that. People are used to waiting for the album to be released."

A spokesman for Tower Records said: "We expect to sell 1,500 copies by the end of the week. Oasis's single is already number one of our chart. It will be number one in the national chart next week."

Leading article, page 15