“The great war is over!” declares one of dozens of newspaper headlines flashing up on the screen at Oasis’s final UK reunion show. Out come the brothers arm-in-arm: Liam and Noel Gallagher in the flesh. Could it be, thinks the 90,000-strong full-house at Wembley Stadium, that they are really embracing together on that stage? That they have held out on feuding for the 39 dates thus far to get here, immediately opening, appropriately, with the chaotic static of “Hello”?
The world went nostalgia mad for the Oasis reunion when it was announced just over a year ago. In their Nineties heyday, they were almost certainly the most culturally important British band. In retrospect, it’s increasingly charming to think how the Britpop heroes managed to be both sneery and sentimental, arrogant and sincere. But in the years since their 2009 split, the brother-on-brother soap opera – you either knew they would inevitably get back together or believed what they bitterly swore (that the hate ran too deep) – left a Gallagher reconciliation in doubt. After all, only a sibling would understand the truth of Noel’s infamous quote: “I liked my mum until she gave birth to Liam.”
In the way that Charli XCX’s Brat Summer dominated 2024’s sweaty season, Oasis have fundamentally owned it this year. Male fashion took an immediate hard swerve towards vintage Adidas jackets, Fred Perry, bucket hats, and football shirts. You couldn’t go a week without your friends and family announcing a trip overseas to see the band, having failed to get their hands on those coveted UK tickets. Though at last night’s Wembley show, Liam seemed to tease another tour (“see you all next year,” he said during the encore), there is a sense that all that joy ends tonight. The biggest band in the UK plays its biggest stadium and ends their home run: fun for fun’s sake is over in just two hours.
But not before “Morning Glory” – the third song in – when the stadium really roars into action. “Need a little time to wake up,” Liam calls out, pointing at an imaginary watch on his wrist. He looks as cool as ever, exuding a “f*** off” attitude in aviators and that classic parka. “I need all ya in the posh seats as well to turn around and give each other a cuddle,” he orders the crowd before a round of “Cigarettes & Alcohol”. It’s wonderful to see men taking so many grinning selfies together; heartwarming to see the full families of different generations screaming along to the chorus of “Roll With It”.
For a good while it looks as though Noel is at risk of fading into the background, until it becomes clear that he’s given space to shine slap-bang in the middle of the set. On the unassuming balladic tracks “Talk Tonight” (inspired, actually, by the near-break-up of the band in the mid-Nineties) and “Half the World Away,” as well as on the huge-sounding “Little By Little,” the guitarist leads it all, nonchalant and unreadable in that everyman Noel Gallagher manner, while Liam mooches about. It’s worth mentioning that the legacy band is as tight as ever, the sound crystalline and the songs entirely well-aged: classic rock but culturally relevant somehow, still so British.
Any last vestiges of energy are reserved for the encore, as “The Masterplan” sends the beer flying before the three big guns, some of the best-known songs in British music history: “Don’t Look Back In Anger”, ”Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova”. It’s what everyone’s been waiting for and it is as cathartic, as emotive as we expected.
Most of Liam’s chatter tonight is reserved to the occasional “nice one” – the verbal equivalent of a fist-bump – or a brief song dedication. The show is not only commentary free but it’s completely apolitical: there are no comments about politicians, or Palestine, not even a classic insult thrown out from Liam. It’s just Oasis doing the hits. And yet throughout the jubilation of a brilliant show promised and delivered, there is a distinct “summer is over” energy, a sad last hurrah vibe.
As this Oasis Summer comes to a close, the cultural mood in the UK has deteriorated into something sour. A couple of Sundays ago, enough people to fill this stadium almost twice over travelled down the road for the biggest far-right protest in decades. Prime minister Keir Starmer has announced a huge step towards mass surveillance with his digital ID cards policy. Reform UK is surging in the polls. “What’s so great about Britain?” a new special socio-political edition of British GQ asked its writers and celebrity interviewees to ponder, seizing on this uncomfortable moment. Who knows, but thankfully we have Oasis. “See you next year,” Liam teases again, before the fireworks erupt.
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