Oasis ended a 16-year hiatus on Friday with a punchy, powerful trip through one of Britpop’s greatest songbooks, kicking off a reunion tour in Cardiff, Wales, to a crowd ecstatic for the band’s 1990s hits.
And was there brotherly love between the famously feuding Gallagher siblings? Definitely maybe.
Fans travelled to the Welsh capital from around the world for a show that many thought would never happen. Guitarist-songwriter Noel Gallagher and his singer brother Liam, the heart of Oasis, had not performed together since their acrimonious split in 2009.
One fan banner summed it up: “The great wait is over.”
After a montage of headlines about the sparring siblings was capped with the words “the guns have fallen silent,” Oasis appeared on stage to a deafening roar, opening with the apt Hello and its refrain of “it’s good to be back.”
The brothers had a brief hand-in-hand moment but largely kept their distance onstage. Noel, 58, focused on his guitar while a parka-clad Liam, 52, snarled into the microphone with a swagger that has not dimmed in the 31 years since the band released its first album, Definitely Maybe.
A crowd of more than 60,000 in the Principality Stadium was treated to a well-paced two-hour set that drew heavily on the first album and its 1995 followup, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, alongside a smattering of later tracks and fan-favourite B-sides.
Noel took his turn on lead vocals for several songs, including Half the World Away, and the show ended with encores featuring some of Oasis’s most enduring tracks: Don’t Look Back in Anger, Wonderwall and Champagne Supernova. The brothers shared a half-hug as they ended the final song.
There was little banter, though Liam paused between songs to check the audience was having a good time.
“Was it worth the 40,000 pounds you paid for the ticket?” he quipped at one point, referring to the scramble for seats that saw some fans pay hundreds to see a show.
From the roar of response, it was.
‘Very, very special’
The show kicked off a 19-date tour in the U.K. and Ireland. Then come stops in North America, South America, Asia and Australia, ending in Sao Paulo on Nov. 23.
Before the show, the streets around the stadium filled with fans who gathered in groups to sing along to the band’s hits and snapped up Oasis-branded bucket hats at 35 pounds ($65 Cdn) each.
“It’s very, very special — emotional,” said 44-year old Rob Maule from Edinburgh, Scotland. “I’m here with three of my friends, childhood friends, and we used to see Oasis across the country.
Founded in the working-class streets of Manchester, England, in 1991, Oasis was one of the dominant British acts of the 1990s, releasing eight U.K. No. 1 albums.
The band’s sound was fuelled by sing-along rock choruses and the combustible chemistry between guitarist-songwriter Noel — a Beatles and glam rock-loving musician with a knack for memorable tunes — and younger brother Liam.
Then and since, the brothers have often traded barbs — onstage, in the studio and in interviews. Liam once called Noel “tofu boy,” while Noel branded his brother “the angriest man you’ll ever meet. He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
After a backstage bustup at a concert in France in 2009, they long resisted pressure to reunite, even with the promise of a multimillion-dollar payday.
Now they have agreed on a tour that sees them joined by former Oasis members Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Gem Archer on guitar, bassist Andy Bell and drummer Joey Waronker.
The announcement of the U.K. tour in August sparked a ticket-buying frenzy, complete with error messages, hourslong online queues, dashed hopes and anger at prices that surged at the last minute.
The ticketing troubles sparked questions in U.K. Parliament, where Arts Minister Chris Bryant criticized “practices that see fans of live events blindsided by price hikes.” Britain’s competition regulator has since threatened Ticketmaster — which sold around 900,000 Oasis tickets — with legal action.
No plans have been announced for Oasis to record any new music, and the tour is being presented as a one-off.
