IT’S now just four sleeps until the biggest British band reunion there will ever be.
Yes, I’m calling it. The Oasis reconciliation has never been equalled — and will never be eclipsed.
Liam Gallagher, left, and Noel in June 2001 perform for their Dutch fans at a gig in the Netherlands[/caption]
It’s not hyperbole or exaggeration — this is the reunion to top all reunions, after 16 years of rumours, insults, damned lies, sub-par solo records, bitter divorces and naked venom.
Who else but Oasis could be kicking up a storm and a scramble for eye-wateringly exorbitant tickets and inserting themselves right in the middle of the national conversation yet again with a forthcom- ing tour-we-thought-might-never-be dominating news bulletins and column inches for almost a year?
As Liam Gallagher wrote on X: “Oasis rehearsals get more coverage than most band’s tours.”
There are only two Beatles left — drum and bass — The Stones and The Who never really packed it in. Neither did U2 — and they’re Irish anyway.
Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant is 76 and Jimmy Page, 81, and their fans are dying out.
The animosity between Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, 79, and Roger Waters, 81, appears insurmountable.
Anyway, both groups — and I adore them equally — have already done it for peerless one-off shows I was privileged to witness in 2007 and 2005 respectively.
Take That or One Direction? Pah! Forget it. Where are the guitars?
The Stone Roses did it already.
The Jam and The Smiths will likely never happen but could they really sell out stadia across North and South America, Japan, Australia, South Korea — and perhaps beyond — at the same speed and scale?
Crowning moment for cool britannia
And the musical, media and technological landscapes have fractured so significantly over the past decades that I cannot envisage any group hereafter emerging with such impact and cultural significance, capturing the zeitgeist and empowering a nation.
Legend will tell you that the Gallaghers never conquered America — yet they are playing two heaving mega-shows at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and the LA Rose Bowl, alongside Chicago’s Soldier Field, their North American jaunt premiering with a brace of now-ticketless dates at the Rogers Stadium in Toronto, Canada.
Spotify and streaming platforms have informed and educated new international audiences about the Mancs, who are now a more dominant global force than ever.
So make no mistake, the Oasis Live ’25 tour, which I and 74,499 others will be privileged enough to witness on Friday night at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, is the biggest British rock reunion of all time. Ever. Ad infinitum. End of.
The Gallaghers also happen to be Catholic brothers — and their complex relationship began to resemble something of a holy tale, albeit latterly played out via X rather than the scriptures.
Human beings have always been fascinated by sibling stories of rivalry and jealousy, not least Joseph in the Book of Genesis, which chronicles betrayal and ultimate reconciliation of the main man and his brothers.
Sound familiar? Indeed, as Liam might say, biblical. It remains to be seen whether he will be wearing a coat of many colours on stage.
These 41 Oasis dates are expected to bring in £400million with further dates in 2026 also being mooted, perhaps in Europe and also to tie in with the 30th anniversary of their peerless shows at Maine Road and Knebworth, but only if the brothers’ truce holds.
There have also been various band and solo brand deals with Adidas, Burberry, Stone Island and Clarks shoes since the reunion announcement, swelling the divorce-laden Gallagher coffers even further.
Merch deals include £40 branded bucket hats, shot glasses, jigsaw puzzles, Oasis-themed tote bags and even baby grows.
Curiously, Oasis rivals Coldplay are actually playing more sold-out dates at Wembley Stadium this summer, but with little fanfare.
They will perform a record-breaking ten nights at the home of English football after the initial Oasis run of five (with two extra Gallagher shows in September).
That will take Coldplay’s career total to 22 dates at Wembley, compared to 12 for the Mancunians.
Liam rattles a tambourine as Noel strums at Glastonbury Festival in 2004[/caption]
Noel with his Union Jack guitar at his beloved Manchester City’s Maine Road stadium in 1996[/caption]
Chris Martin — who Liam once said looked like a geography teacher — may be trying to get one over on his northern counterparts.
Coldplay announced their run soon after Oasis, pointedly spurning dynamic pricing structures which had caused such controversy when the brothers’ dates went on sale.
They also agreed to commit ten per cent of proceeds from their British dates to the Music Venue Trust, a UK charity which supports grassroots music venues.
And, in a further wrestle for the moral high ground, Coldplay’s gigs will be the world’s first stadium shows powered by 100 per cent solar, wind and kinetic energy.
Oasis won’t care for such nonsense, but I’m told relationships between the bands, particularly their main songwriters, are not as amicable as they once were.
But while Coldplay may be the most-played British group of the 21st century on UK radio and TV and are a bigger band in terms of global commercial success, they don’t have anywhere near the cultural and societal impact of Oasis.
The Oasis Live ’25 tour is the biggest British rock reunion of all time[/caption]
Oasis played a significant role in shaping ’90s British media and politics, assisting the ushering in of Tony Blair as Labour Prime Minister in 1997.
The 1996 Brit Awards were very much the crowning moment for this emerging Cool Britannia movement, with its cast all assembled for the one and only time, under the crumbling roof of Earl’s Court: Oasis, Blur, Robbie Williams, a then-unknown Spice Girls, Chris Evans, Supergrass, Pulp, of course, Radiohead, Massive Attack and Creation Records Svengali Alan McGee, the man who signed Oasis less than three years earlier.
Nervy PM-in-waiting Blair would present a lifetime achievement award to David Bowie — and Noel, upon receiving one of the band’s three awards that night, told the crowd: “There are seven people in this room who are giving a little bit of hope to young people in this country. That is me, our kid, Bonehead, Guigs, Alan White, Alan McGee and Tony Blair. And if you’ve all got anything about you, you’ll go up there and you’ll shake Tony Blair’s hand, man. He’s the man! Power to the people!”
Ounces of cocaine next to the blairs
Afterwards, the Blairs approached the Oasis table, stacked high with cigarettes and alcohol — and a little more.
“There were literally ounces of cocaine, just a couple of feet away from them,” Creation Records MD Tim Abbot later confided.
And rhythm guitarist Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs — now back in the band he helped found — recalled: “They were very sheepish. Cherie Blair was like, ‘Would you mind awfully signing something for my kids? They’re very big fans.’ We just went, ‘Waaaargh’. We were f***ed.”
There were literally ounces of cocaine, just a couple of feet away from them
Tim Abbot
This typified the Oasis attitude which the British public largely embraced — they just didn’t care about who they offended. About how they behaved. Or what they said.
They were a journalist’s dream, a consistently controversial band on whom I would forge my career.
But, forget not, Noel’s songwriting was incomparable at that moment in time, too — paeans like Live Forever and Slide Away would resonate from Bognor to Burnage pub jukeboxes throughout the glorious ’90s.
In a post-Thatcher Britain, walls were crashing down and our country was modernising, creatives flourishing with fashion, the punkish Young British Artists, the UK restaurant business with eateries like St John, Quo Vadis and Aubergine emerging, handsome football, a more tolerant politics and the mood-capturing, mega-selling media fusing to make Britain great again.
Oasis may have led this charge but the band’s crowning glory at the Brits and what followed must be looked at in context.
Sprinting out of the Acid House movement of the late ’80s emerged a Madchester sound, forged by Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets and The Stone Roses, who all looked like they had just stepped off the football terraces and whose influence on the Gallaghers cannot be underestimated.
Hand-in-hand, England’s progress at the Italia ’90 World Cup and Gazza’s tears helped drag football out of hooliganism, spawning the Premier League in 1992.
Rupert Murdoch’s Sky splashed out for the rights and the modern game was born, its players’ wages detonating, ushering in a new generation of rock star ’ballers who, later, almost delivered in the domestic Euro ’96 championship, with heroic Gascoigne again at its heart and Three Lions echoing around a decaying old Wembley.
The spirit of British music and football became enmeshed, emboldening a young working class, tired of a grubby Conservative government and wielding a desire for swift and radical change.
Two deaths in 1994, the year of Cool Britannia’s fertilisation, would transform the musical and political landscapes irrevocably.
In April, as a fledgling 24-year old journalist for the Sunday Mirror, I would write the obituary of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain’s — largely because nobody else there really knew who he was.
And, just weeks later, Labour leader John Smith’s premature passing would stun us all.
They were very sheepish. Cherie Blair was like, ‘Would you mind awfully signing something for my kids? They’re very big fans.’ We just went, ‘Waaaargh’. We were f***ed
Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs
These deaths paved the way for the twin emergence of a young, homegrown Britpop movement, New Labour and an equally youthful politician named Tony Blair, just 43.
My first live encounter with Oasis came in August 1994 during a ferocious show at London’s Kentish Town Forum.
A provocative, surly, agitated, subversive, volatile performance, clearly signalling that we were witnessing a bombastic new chapter of British rock.
Little did I know then what influence this band would have on our lives and my journalistic career.
Within months of that embryonic onslaught, the mad-fer-it brothers would begin to determine the way Britons dressed and cut their hair, even the language they would use — and how they might even vote.
At Knebworth House, less than two years later, 250,000 shaggy-haired lads and ladettes, boldly clad in England football tops, checked shirts, baggy jeans, Clarks Wallabees, cargo trousers and Adidas, packed that holy, sun-baked field and chanted Noel’s council estate hymns dedicated to Britain’s youth, excited for their futures and sensing a transformative and more tolerant British society.
Life felt more fun and colourful Chris Martin is certainly a mighty talented songwriter, but how many people really want to dress like him or copy his haircut?
My passion and journalism throughout this period, working closely with both Oasis and Coldplay, in print, digital and broadcast media, would ultimately combine and contribute to my rise to become The Sun’s Editor and my appointment was announced on August 26, 2009.
Strange timing because, two days later, Oasis would implode and split up in France, dominating those early papers.
But, in a 2017 interview with GQ magazine, Liam would claim that it was my presence in the band’s dressing room, before the Paris show, which sparked an incendiary row with Noel, ending the band. Dead forever. Or so we thought. I was mortified.
He recalled: “I saw Dominic Mohan and some other fing clown from The Sun waltzing around backstage, necking our champagne. Not having it.”
As if I would be ligging backstage, sipping the Gallagher bubbly, just as I’d landed the biggest job in British journalism.
Yes, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness Oasis live on more than 25 occasions — in Manchester, Tokyo, California, Milan, Oslo, Majorca and even Exeter — but never Paris.
It was a case of mistaken identity. I was not there.
Sixteen years on, these monumental 2025 congregations and the soul-stirring anthems which will reverberate around Britain’s most cavernous venues shall serve to remind us all of a less complex time, where life felt more light-hearted, fun and colourful.
A pre-pandemic, analogue world where all our dreams were made before we were chained to an iPhone and a Facebook page.
