I got it wrong about the Oasis comeback tour. I don’t mean I got it wrong in saying that the reason for the tour was purely financial, that it was nothing but 1990s nostalgia with the band playing the exact same set every night and there would be no new music. What I got completely wrong was the positive effect it would have on so many people’s lives. And where I expected unruly gatherings of 60-somethings getting pissed and lairy, the gigs from what I have seen and read were joyous occasions for old and new fans alike.
I complained about rip off ticket prices but I may have been wrong about that, too. You are only being ripped off when it comes to rock shows if you allow yourself to be. No one has forced anyone to go along.
While there is nothing adventurous or new about Oasis, that is not to say that principle songwriter Noel Gallagher doesn’t have an ear for a decent tune and a great hook. And even if his lyrics are pure gobbledegook, that’s hardly unique in pop music. I was a big fan of T. Rex back in the 1970s and no one wrote more gobbledegook than the late, great Marc Bolan. And anyone, no one at the Oasis shows seemed to give a toss as they joined in with, “Stand by me, nobody knows the way it’s gonna be“, while I would have been thinking: “Noel stole that one from David Bowie (All The Young Dudes). Nope. Those gobby Mancs can relate to me, they thought. They could be working in the foundry with me, going for a pint afterwards.” That, I believe, is the essence of Oasis.
And younger people did go to the reunion shows, including women and girls. Oasis, we were told, were just a lads band and maybe they were, but no one said they had to be forever. I know of people who weren’t even born when Definitely Maybe, their first album, was released in 1994 and they all said, without exception, that Oasis were brilliant.
The every man shtick happens to be real. We all know that Liam Gallagher is not a great singer, in the technical sense. I’d say he’s more of a vocalist, who can project his brother’s material to audiences great and small. And the fears that he’d be hopelessly out of tune in the comeback shows never materialised. Whatever Liam is, he’s definitely a rock and roll star.
Back in the days of Britpop, there was the so-called battle between Oasis and Blur, which I saw as a bit of a joke. They were two completely separate entities, one an old style, cliché-laden rock and roll band and the other more eclectic, experimental and challenging. It would be like comparing apples and oranges. In these unsettled times, there’s room for both, isn’t there?
Anyone who believed that 2025 would be the temporary rebirth and then permanent ending of Oasis must have realised by now that this one will run and run. It is not whether there will be further shows – 10 days at Knebworth, anyone? – but when. It will surely be announced that “due to unprecedented public demand” there will be more shows in 2026 and beyond because the demand for the Gallagher brothers’ music is not fading; it’s growing.
Maybe there will be new Oasis music to accompany the next leg of touring, but I wonder how many fans paying top dollar will really want Liam to announce: “And now we’re going to play some songs from our new album“, when they could be banging out Live Forever and Don’t Look Back In Anger? If Oasis are nothing but a touring jukebox, playing all the old songs and nothing but the old songs, isn’t that why people are buying tickets in the first place?
It’s not quite the same as me going to small halls to see Lack Of Afro and Midlake, specifically to hear some new songs along with the classics. Oasis are superstars. There’s a time and a place for nostalgia and who better than Oasis to provide it, particularly since in my opinion every album that came after Definitely Maybe was not as good as the one before. Noel will never write another Wonderwall or Champagne Supernova and I am not sure whether anyone expects or even wants him to.
The boys done great and let’s not allow even grinches like me to deny it. Next year, there will be another summer of Oasis. Millions of people have lived their best lives seeing the band this summer. In these grim, uncertain times, perhaps Oasis can provide a good time, a happy place, to refresh memories and to remind us that not all is wrong in the world.
Music can sometime conquer all, even when the words don’t mean anything. As an Oasis fan said to me last summer: “does that really matter”? And if it doesn’t matter to you, then it doesn’t matter at all. Over to you Noel and Liam.
