Stop crying your heart out—for Oasis have returned to the stage

IT IS THE moment rock fans thought would never happen. On July 4th Oasis, the greatest British band of their generation, will go on stage for the first time in 16 years. Such a thing seemed impossible given the group’s spectacular combustion in 2009, after a fight between Liam Gallagher, the lead singer, and his brother, Noel, the main songwriter. In the intervening years the siblings fired shots at each other in the press and on social media. (Noel famously described Liam as “the angriest man you’ll ever meet. He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”) But now, they claim, “The guns have fallen silent.”

The global stadium tour is a reflection of the band’s longevity and fans’ refusal to slide away. Tickets sold at supersonic speed. Fans were furious at the use of “dynamic pricing”, in which prices of tickets adjust in response to demand—so much so that Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s prime minister, promised to look into the practice.

Oasis may be electric now but, like any band, they had their fair share of dud gigs. One, in May 1993, was attended by only a dozen punters. Oasis had been a late addition to the line-up at King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut, a music venue in Glasgow. After some negotiation, the staff agreed to let the band play a four-song set.

Yet Alan McGee was watching—and he owned Creation Records, an independent label. To anyone listening casually, the band from Manchester sounded like umpteen others making raw post-punk, all cigarettes and alcohol. But Mr McGee heard potential. The band had a propulsive energy. They were not polished, but they played well together. The lanky singer had swagger, loutish charm and a seductive drawl. Mr McGee signed Oasis soon after.

It was the right decision: Oasis became rock’n’roll stars and one of the defining acts of the 1990s. Their first album, “Definitely Maybe” (1994), sold 86,000 copies in a week: more than any other British debut. “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” (1995), their follow-up, has sold more than 22m copies. One of the record’s singles, “Wonderwall”, is the third-most-streamed song from the 1990s on Spotify, after “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.

Oasis were part of a crop of young bands including Blur, Pulp and The Verve who reinvigorated British pop music. Blur—with whom they had a long-running feud—made music that was more winkingly clever than Oasis’s; Pulp’s was more try-hard experimental. The Verve had an orchestrated, psychedelic charm. But, more than any of their rivals, Oasis wrote well-crafted, classic rock anthems that left listeners humming them for days.

Their debt to The Beatles is obvious. (Liam once claimed to be a reincarnation of John Lennon.) The piano in “Don’t Look Back in Anger”—one of the group’s biggest hits—sounds like a hard-rock reworking of the opening bars to “Let It Be”. The line “I’m gonna start a revolution from my bed” pokes fun at the interviews given by Lennon and Yoko Ono from their hotel room in Amsterdam, where they said they would remain in bed for a week to protest against the Vietnam war. Critics may call Oasis derivative, but there is something to be said for emulating the best.

And, derivative or not, it worked. To date Oasis have sold more than 70m albums, compared with Blur’s 17m. Between 2019 and 2024, Oasis’s songs accrued 10bn streams globally, compared with 2.9bn for Blur, 2.7bn for The Verve and 750m for Pulp. The tour has given Oasis renewed relevance, propelling the band to 2.5bn streams last year (see chart): their highest annual total on record. TikTokers also love the band. This year Oasis-related videos have drawn more than 2bn views.

Part of Oasis’s appeal has always been their rough-hewn vibe. Blur’s frontman, Damon Albarn, is a drama-school dropout whose parents were bohemian artists in London. The Gallaghers, by contrast, grew up in a down-at-heel part of Manchester, brought up by a single mother who left her abusive husband. They were self-taught: the first time Noel saw Liam’s band play, he had no idea his brother could sing. As Andy Bollen writes in “Definitely Maybe”, a new history of the band, they “looked like the common man”.

Oasis had hits with tracks such as “Roll With It” and “Let There Be Love”, but the band never followed their own advice. Liam and Noel were constantly fighting with each other: Noel once attacked Liam with a cricket bat during a recording session. During the blow-up in 2009, before a show in Paris, Liam lobbed a plum and swung a guitar around. Noel stormed out of the dressing room and released a statement announcing the end of Oasis. The brothers each went on to have successful solo careers, but attempts at rapprochement failed. Until now.

Many are sceptical that the brothers can keep it amicable for the next five months. (“This is the first and only time that you should pay the $47 for event insurance,” one social-media user said.) If all the concerts do go ahead, expect a sing-along: there will be no new music and plenty of old classics. That will suit fans just fine—the word is on the street that the fire in their hearts is not out. ■