Appropriately for a column about a pair of Catholic lads, I am what you might call a lapsed Oasis fan.
As a teenager I had a full collection of their singles, which came in those tiny little half-width jewel cases I haven’t seen out in the wild for at least two decades. My friends and I would buy each release the day they came out, poring over the B-sides, forming an ever-changing ranking of their lesser-known songs. We were all slightly put-out when The Masterplan was released on a self-titled album three years after it came as a B-side on Wonderwall; those felt like tracks for the real fans.
But I will not be among those queuing for tickets on Saturday. I’ve seen Oasis play a few times over the years, most recently at the City of Manchester Stadium in 2005 (a jarring reminder of the passage of time – 20 years! Where did they go!). By this stage the Gallagher brothers were barely able to share a stage, their interactions terse, their animosity palpable. After they played Live Forever, Liam pointedly turned to Noel and said: “Why don’t you write some more songs like these?”.
Even beneath all his bustling Mancunian bravado, that must have stung – because it was true. Oasis never recaptured the magic of Definitely Maybe or its follow-up (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? Their next album, 1997’s Be Here Now, felt like a bridge between those brilliant records and everything that would follow. Can you name any of the three albums that followed 2000’s Standing on the Shoulder of Giants? Me neither, and I definitely (maybe) bought them all.
Early Oasis sounded like the primal scream of youth, a bunch of guys from a council estate who grew up on a diet of junk food and The Beatles, singing about getting pissed and becoming rock ‘n’ roll staaaars. They were a lightning bolt for a disaffected but aspirational generation, striking during those heady mid-1990s days when it really seemed like everything might turn out alright (Blair before Bush, Clinton before Lewinsky, the climate before we realised it was broken). Britain was in recovery, Britpop was going global, New Labour was on the horizon. Maybe we really could all be rock stars, getting high with our mates, getting the girl, chasing the sun. Oasis encapsulated that moment in a way their erstwhile rivals Blur never did, never could, even if Damon Albarn and co would go on to prove themselves superior musicians.
But when Oasis actually did become the megastars they always threatened to be, the dynamic was broken. Suddenly they were the very thing they once reacted against – establishment musicians living in mansions, dating pop-stars and models. They still put on a show, but playing to stadium crowds is a far cry from the days when Liam would insist on turning the amp to bleeding-ear levels for their pub gigs. Hearing loss is for the old! Somebody get me a fookin’ drink!
Oasis playing Knebworth in 1996
Their most famous gig of all came in 1996 at Knebworth, a town just north of Welwyn Garden City that is now synonymous with Oasis. There, 250,000 fans – more than the entirety of Glastonbury – attended each leg of a sold-out two night run. I wasn’t among them but by all accounts – and there are many, many accounts, more accounts than there were people at Knebworth – it was epic. Paradoxically, this is around the time I started to fall out of love with Oasis: it felt like they had peaked, fulfilled their potential. From there it was a slow, inexorable decline into the band they were 15 years ago, and will be again one year from now, playing the same old songs to fans who only want to hear the hits.
They aren’t planning to release any new music for next year’s concerts – why would they? Nobody is buying tickets to hear what the Gallagher Brothers have to say about 2025. For fans like me who remember them the first time around, these gigs will be a treacle-thick hit of pure nostalgia, a bittersweet reminder of the time we, too, thought we would live forever.
But nostalgia is poisoned chalice, a less perfect replica, a facsimile. Oasis was once a band for people who thought they were going somewhere. Now those people have all arrived – bellies and hairlines showing the scars of their journeys – and it’s not quite the same. There’s something tragic about a chap in his fifties sporting a Gallagher mop (although not as tragic as a guy in his 50s sporting a Paul Weller “Well-end”). Corporate hospitality firms are already scrabbling for tickets, ensuring the “prawn sandwich brigade” will be there en masse.
Even the newer fans – at least those with the readies to land a ticket – are pining for a slice of yesterday, of what we had, the same way I grew up wanting a slice of Bruce Springsteen and The Smiths (alas I had to settle for Morrissey).
Is this just sour grapes from a music snob yearning for the energy and passion of youth? Perhaps. Would I secretly like to go? Probably. Let me know if you have a spare ticket.