Britpop’s untouchables make peace to make history again

Faith moves mountains and it seems that nostalgia does too. The countless prayers of Oasis fans, the most iconic British band of the 90s, have been answered. After several days of rumors, The Gallagher brothers have confirmed on social media that they will return to the stage next summer. They will do this with four concerts at Wembley in 2025, four at Heaton Park in Manchester, two in Edinburgh, two in Cardiff and two more concerts in Dublin. Tickets will go on sale on August 31.

The announcement finally puts an end to the rumour mill and mystery that had surrounded the band for 15 years. The industry, fans and themselves had continually speculated about a possible reconciliation. In 2023, Damon Albarn, frontman of Oasis’ rival band Blur, told The Sun: “I can guarantee they’re going to make peace. In fact, I’ve put money on it. The only funny thing is, our two nights at Wembley will be overshadowed by their SEVEN“.

Finally, there will only be four concerts and not ten, as the British media pointed out this week, in the London stadium, although speculation is also circulating on social networks that the group, which will only count the Gallaghers as original members, could headline the bill of the legendary Glastonbury festival, where they last played in 2004.

They split on August 28, 2009 — they decided to confirm their return almost the same day fifteen years later — but They have been angry all their livesstill like the dog and the cat. Liam is the dog who just wants to play and be loved, and Noel is the lazy cat who cares more about his own skin. “I know I’m a bastard,” Noel admitted in the documentary about the band Supersonic (2016).

Because while Liam was always willing to turn the other cheek – “We should never have broken up, but we did, and that’s where we are. I would love for Oasis to get back together. If it happens, it happens. Although I’m quite happy doing my solo career,” he said in a 2022 interview with The Times about his band Beady Eye (2009) – Noel, who formed Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (2010) a year later, has always kept his distance between the two.

The wait was such that no one seemed to blame them. Maybe they made peace with a few phone calls and a checkbook. —according to The Sun, the tour would bring in 400 million pounds, or a little more 472 million euros— but people on social media are joking about mortgaging their house and digging up the parka, the one Liam always wears, whether it’s 40 degrees or not, so they can see the Gallaghers together again, like brothers. It’s also about whether the couple will make it to the last Wembley alive or kill each other along the way.

It is likely that time and age have also swallowed up this ceasefire. In the same interview with the Times, Liam said that the last time he spoke to his brother, he saw him as “a different person”, “like he had been kidnapped”. In 2023, the tabloids learned that Noel was facing a million-dollar divorce from Sara MacDonald, after 22 years of marriage.

Additionally, while Liam has shown that he’s still in good shape – just a few months ago he released a new album with Stone Roses guitarist John Squire – he also explained how your health problemsespecially Hashimoto’s autoimmune disease, had ended his days of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll.

So, rumor has it that the marital (and monetary) crises of one and the health of the other may have contributed to both putting aside their differences and giving in to the pleas of their beloved fans, the only ones to whom they have bowed. shown gratitude. “They both know it’s now or never. They know This meeting will remain in the history of music“, continues The Sun.

They are doing it just in time to celebrate 30 years of Certainly, maybe (1994), their first album and the one that propelled them to fame, with a tour that will also celebrate three decades of their second album. (What’s the story) Morning Glory? (1995), and there is no expectation that there will be an absence of controversy.

After all, the Gallagher brothers, who maintain one of the cainite relations The most famous in music history, they’ve always been the cockiest kids in the industry. Especially since they started out there as suburban kids.

Liam was still at school when they (literally) hammered his music into him in a fight. After years of apathy towards anything that wasn’t Manchester City, something happened click in his head. He began listening to music compulsively and became so obsessed with being in a band that he started his own band: The Rain, with Tony McCarroll, Paul Arthurs and Chris Hutton.

Noel says it was his father who “gave him talent”. Still immersed in his world, in his shared bedroom, he started playing guitar. After being expelled from school several times and starting to work as a construction worker, he had the opportunity to become the singer of the Mancunian band Inspiral Carpets. With them, Noel began to learn the ropes in the music industry and fully immersed himself in Madchester scene, at its peak with groups like The Stones Roses or Happy Mondays, and whose britpop.

This subgenre, born in the 90s in response to the grunge from Seattle, I was looking for “Make Britain Great Again”, and from there was born Cool Brittany. Although some of the groups assigned to the genre, such as Oasis or Blur, have given up on it in recent years, “it’s too stupid”, they have all managed to restore colour and cultural splendour to the country after the grey years of the Thatcherism.

They were only five years apart in age, but when Noel came back from tour and found out his little brother had started a band without him and it sounded great, he decided to act like an older brother and take the lead. He was the official lyricist, and although he had relegated the role of leader and Liam’s singer, who came up with the band’s name after seeing that even his local Kebab shop was called Oasis, has always tried to make it clear that Everyone in the group, including his brother, was replaceable except him..

At the Beatles level

“We had the same childhood, I don’t know why we were so different,” Noel admits in the documentary. A childhood marked by an absent and violent father, from which emerged two very different personalities: Liam, all rage and viscera, and Noel, introspection and control. Liam wanted to kill his father, Noel decided that he would not write a single letter about him, that he would not give him that pleasure. Yes indeed, through arrogance, both have always been well supplied.

When they started in 1993, they were very clear that Their goal was to get Phill Collins off the charts.. To do this, they got into a caravan and drove to Glasgow to play their first gig, which was attended by only a few hangers-on. Alan McGee, founder of Creation Records and one of the most important producers on the scene independent The Briton was one of them. He had ended up there almost by chance, but after seeing the only 20 minutes of play granted to Oasis, he knew he had to sign them.

After this first stroke of luck, everything happened very quickly. In 1994, and after many complications to give birth to a first album that refused to be released, Certainly, maybe. In three days, after several attempts, a first huge disappointment on the part of the record company and the hymns (like Supersonic) which came out of Noel’s head within minutes while he was eating fish and chips. “The best thing about Oasis is making this album.” say the musicians in the documentary.

Twelve songs about being alive and having a good time, but also about being sad, but knowing that things can get better. They toured Japan: “This is my first time on a plane,” says an excited man. naive Liam, 21 in the documentary – and then in Los Angeles, a tough nutcase too sunny to break. But little by little, the phenomenon that came out of a brickyard ended up going around the world.

With Certainly maybe, The Gallaghers became untouchable, it was the best-selling album of the decade and they, “one of the greatest bands since the Beatles”, ” announced the press. But they were still children, and soon they became THE children terrible British music.

They destroyed hotels, defied journalists and angered the government by claiming that “drugs are like drinking tea.” It seemed like they didn’t care, but in reality, they They wanted to follow in the footsteps of legendary rock musicians, and this can only be achieved by never keeping your mouth shut.

As Oasis ceased to be a mirage of youth, a childhood dream, and took on a life of its own, the fights and ego duels multiplied. They stepped into the spotlight, argued on stage and even threw instruments at each other’s heads. Liam wanted to continue being a hooligan music and Noel, even though he continued to intimidate everyone with his arrogance, knew that they were now in the hands of an industry and that they had to behave as such.

They didn’t really break up because of this or that, it was an accumulation of struggles and childhood trauma that comes from being forced to share a room for years. They communicated telepathically, they hated each other telepathically. It is very likely that they still keep it intact despite the passage of time. “We were not the best at anything, but together we had an alchemy between the band and the audience, something magnetic.” That is why they managed to make a name for themselves, then a myth and now a legend.