What’s the story? Oasis glory
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In which of their eras will you be attending Oasis 2025? Will you, like the Swifties, wear some token of your ardour to exchange with other fans? Maybe you can swap tambourines or bucket hats? Will you adopt the Noel mod haircut or do you prefer something looser and more expressive, akin to Liam’s early shags?
Of course, there is really only one Oasis era: the Gallagher brothers have always been dogmatically consistent in their style. In hindsight, their moment seems almost fleeting — a cultural phenomenon that ignited the early 1990s and was then lionised in the brief smug of Cool Britannia under Tony Blair. Its two Mancunian protagonists, Messrs Liam and Noel Gallagher, defined the decade’s lad — brothers, rabble rousers, rivals, reprobates, they provoked the music industry, the competition (such as they acknowledged any), the media and anyone who wanted them to play by normal rules.
Oasis bathed in the golden light of public adulation and then self-immolated offstage. Oasis performed their last gig in August 2009, after years of infighting (and several more of being a sub-par band). “I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer,” wrote Noel, the band’s lead guitarist and songwriter, at the time.
Oasis is, for some, a Roman empire — a band that still occupies an outsize place within the mind. In which context, the Gallaghers are our Romulus and Remus, with Noel the Romulus of myth who emerged from his long fraternal struggle to claim the big financial spoils. Liam was always the alchemist of Oasis, the vocal genius who could nail a song in just one take. But, as the band’s brains and talent, Noel amassed a fortune in the tens of millions, which dwarfed his brother’s smaller pot.
And yet the alimony waits for no man — and Noel’s divorce last year from Sara MacDonald cost a reported £20mn. Divorce won’t tolerate retirement. And so surely it’s no coincidence that the boys are dusting off the maracas and trying to heal their ancient wounds. Seventeen dates have been announced across the UK and Ireland, on a tour that is expected to net the brothers about £50mn each. That should pay for a few more houses, and keep Noel’s tiny feet well soled.
In the meantime, the band’s mythology has grown ever stronger, stoked in no small part by Noel himself. He has long claimed the band’s historic run at Knebworth in 1996 (to which 2.6m people — 5 per cent of the British population at the time, applied for tickets), was the “last great gathering before the birth of the internet”. Other boasts have been similarly audacious: a columnist in this paper once wrote that Oasis “were the last band to permeate every nook and cranny of national life”. I would hazard that Coldplay, the Spice Girls and even One Direction could claim similar, depending on one’s age and sex.
That said, Oasis do have a unique hold on “the people”, whoever they may be. They conjure a collective nostalgia that holds millions in its thrall. Chris Floyd is a portrait photographer who first took pictures of the band in 1994, when they were still barely known. He continued to shoot them throughout the ’90s and at the zenith of their fame. Lately, he tells me, he’s been astonished at the interest in Oasis coming from a new wave of Gen Z fans. For Floyd, the fascination “represents a freedom from the yoke of social media. A time when you could say what you want without being cancelled, you could do what you wanted, you could walk how you wanted. Oasis, and Britpop more generally, represents a freedom from the TikTok tyranny.”
Meanwhile, a male magazine editor who came of age during Britpop contends that the reunion heralds “the return of BLOKE”. Oasis is the last gasp of credibility for “those poor benighted middle-aged dad rockers who have had to put up with Swifties and Brats and other unsettling pop phenomena, now it’s our time again. Oasis were crap but they had swagger and they were riotously entertaining and peculiarly British, and they were so optimistic. Young people love the ’90s cos it looks like so much fun. Old people love the ’90s because it WAS so much fun.”
When I think of Oasis I think of my teen boyfriends, clustered in macho muso huddles, talking in a way that felt quite closed to me. But Floyd wants to disabuse me of the notion that Oasis ’25 will be a “Lads Summer” for men reliving their feral youths. As evidence, he forwards me a set of images from a concert in 1994. Instead of seeing lots of boys, the audience is disproportionally made up of female fans.
“It’s about the moment,” he says, of what the band has come to mean. “And the communality. It’s about arms around your best mate’s shoulders, in unison. And no phones.”
This desperation for the moment transcends all demographics. It’s symptomatic of a much broader cause. From the Kamala Harris joyride, to New New Labour and this summer’s stadium concerts, it’s not about the content, it’s all about the vibe. We are frantic to get together, to share companionship, fraternity, a shared enthusiasm and to have fun. And in that sense, Oasis Live ’25 will be no different from the Taylor Swift or Coldplay gigs that have already shaken Europe. Another major moment, with more bad hair and beery tears.
Join Jo Ellison and more at the FT Weekend Festival on Saturday 7 September
Jo Ellison will be in conversation with Plum Sykes and Flora Soames about ‘A Complete Guide to English Country Style’ at 1pm as the FT Weekend hosts a full day of talks, tastings, signings and experiences across 10 stages at Kenwood House Gardens in London. Join us there or watch online with a digital pass.
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