Since we were talking about music, I now read the unsurprising surprise news that Oasis are rumoured to be performing a ten night money-making (surely record-breaking? – ed) run at Wembley Stadium next summer, as well as at other giant venues. Doubtless millions of 60-something men will be desperate to shell out vast sums to see the Gallagher brothers reprise their greatest hits in what I expect to be the ‘Noel Gallagher divorce settlement tour‘. Well, it was always going to happen, wasn’t it?
Here’s a thing. I quite liked Oasis for a while. Definitely Maybe was a startlingly good debut album and I purchased it on cassette. The follow-up album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory was a decent follow-up, featuring as it did Don’t Look Back In Anger and Wonderwall, two of my least favourite Oasis songs, but generally not as good as their first album. Each subsequent album was worse than the one that came and they finally called it a day after 2009’s Dig Out Your Soul. Noel and Liam have carved out successful solo careers, Noel the more innovative brother, Liam content to tour the hits to vast audiences. The 15 years since the band split up have seen speculation that the brothers were about to reform and now it’s at fever point. I’d be more surprised if it didn’t happen now. But were Oasis a great band?
The so called Battle of Britpop between Oasis and Blur was, at least to me, a no contest. Noel Gallagher knew how to pen a catchy tune and employ the best rock clichés, but Blur were always different gravy. While Oasis ploughed the same furrow of hard rock licks, Blur stretched boundaries. Each to their own but to me Oasis v Blur was essentially Charles Hawtrey (one for the teenagers, there) versus Mike Tyson.
This is not to say Oasis were rubbish. Derivative and clichéd for sure, with Gallagher N being among the worst lyricists in the history of rock and roll. “And on the palm of her hand is a blister. And I need more time,” anyone? But yes, it’s pointless trying to deny he has, or is it had, a gift for the rock and roll singalong. Yet how about this? “Slowly walkin’ down the hall.Faster than a cannonball. Where were you while we were getting high?” Because I’m always walkin’ down the hall, faster than a cannonball. Class A gobbledegook.
Oasis will sell out Wembley and everywhere else they play next year before you can say “TAYLOR SWIFT” because, and this applies to all of us in one way or another, we all love a bit of nostalgia. 10, or even 20 nights “due to an unprecedented opportunity to make even more money” (surely “unprecedented demand? – ed) would give every ageing man who grew up on a beer-fuelled diet of classic Britpop, belted out by a poundshop John Lennon (sorry, Liam, but that’s what you are), the nostalgia hit of a lifetime. Pints of Carling and Fosters all round!
Seriously, though. Everyone’s happy, aren’t they? The band adds to its pension pot, blokes get to see the band that gave them the soundtrack of their hangovers and at every karaoke since and, more importantly, there’s a boost to workers in a wide variety of sectors.
Every reunion tour, whether it’s Oasis, S Club however-many-it-is-these-days, Girls Aloud, Steps and even, damn it, Blur is all about the money, money, money and although I couldn’t be arsed to go to Blur’s Wembley shows, I did buy the double album of the show, which is all but an oldie greatest hits show. It’s fantastic.
2025 will be 1994 all over again with much of the audience, like me, balder and fatter and reliving their best days, still caught beneath the landslide in a Champagne supernova, a Champagne supernova, where else but in the sky.
Oasis made a lot of people happy and next year they will do so all over again. I like some of their songs, dislike many more of them but love just one, the simply magnificent Acquiesce. A great rock and roll song by anyone’s standards, never mind the Gallaghers. If they don’t play it at Wembley and everywhere else they visit next year, you’ll have been robbed.
