Key events
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
“What’s happening? Everyone having a good time yeah? Is it worth the £4,000 you paid for a ticket?” A bold tack to take, Liam, after that whole dynamic pricing scandal. Having vampirically sucked up everyone’s recent disposable income, into Cast No Shadow they go. Never got why Liam always sings this differently live, with that high note at the end of each line. Takes a bit of the melancholy off I reckon.
Laura Snapes
Back to back Be Here Now numbers, with Stand By Me next. It’s so insanely loud, the outer reaches of sound crackling like setting lava.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
A couple more shots of the joyous and semi-disbelieving crowd.
Laura Snapes
Little By Little brings the first song outside of the 1990s. Even during this Noel still looks a bit like he’s here under duress, but he’s doing these numbers not acoustically as some had thought, but with a big rock production from his backline.
Then Liam comes back on for D’You Know What I Mean? I really like this one, thanks to a heavy rotation of Be Here Now in the car when I was eight. And I used to work with Hamish MacBain at NME – co-author of a new book about Oasis with Ted Kessler – who had a habit of standing up in the office and asking “d’ya know what I mean?” in a way that usually meant “what is this shit?” that I found very enjoyable.
Laura Snapes
Half the World Away. The moody, reflective tone is quite nice, though I prefer the heavier songs that contain these unexpected emotional shades within them, rather than Oasis’s more uniformly melancholy hits.
Sidenote: the closeups of Noel are really showing how both Gallaghers are blessed with a hairline that many men their age would kill for.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
The photographers have whacked on their telephoto lenses because we’re getting some more closeup shots coming in now.
Laura Snapes
I think it was Dave Stewart from Eurythmics who said that when they got incredibly successful, he got “paradise syndrome” – ie, he wasn’t able to enjoy it because the rewards were so relentless. The barrage of hits here so far feels a bit like that, almost enough to make you blase. Oh, Roll With It? Communal fervour off its nuts? Some primal howl emanating from inside that I didn’t know existed? Yeah, whatever.
Noel’s now doing Talk Tonight. Is it rude to say this is a built-in loo break? Liam has definitely taken one.
Laura Snapes
Roll With It now. For anyone hoping for a great fraternal reunion tonight, so far Noel and Liam haven’t even looked at each other, let alone been within two metres of each other. But Liam’s certainly chirpy enough: “How you getting on then, alright? You’re looking good. Especially you there. Stunning. Fucking stunning.”
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
What with the live streams popping up (and down) all over YouTube and TikTok, I’m thinking of all the global Oasis fans getting a tiny, tinny flavour of what’s to come. We all knew that the tour would be massive in the UK, but me and other Oasis observers were quite surprised to see just how quickly the international dates sold out, too. And, it turns out, so were Oasis’s own management company.
“Probably the biggest and most pleasing surprise of the reunion announcement is how huge it was internationally,” Alec McKinlay of Ignition Management said in May. “Honestly, we knew it would be big here, and that doesn’t take much intuition. But looking outside the UK, we knew they had a strong fanbase, we did all the stats. We were quite cautious about what that would mean when it came to people actually buying tickets but we were just bowled over by how huge it was. We could have sold out half a dozen Rose Bowls in Pasadena and probably eight MetLife stadiums in New York in a day.”
Laura Snapes
Then it’s Fade Away, and Supersonic, the latter heralded by that plectrum scrape down the strings then a lavish wobble of whammy bar.
Laura Snapes
Bring It on Down, then Cigarettes & Alcohol. I am not one for guitar heroics but the sound between Noel, Bonehead and Gem Archer is this amazing careening, cascade of noise. “Hello beautiful people, I want you to do us a favour,” Liam says. “I don’t ask much, I want you to turn around and put your arms around each other … and jump up and fucking down.”
Meet the Oasis band
In his excellent essay on Oasis today, our poet laureate Simon Armitage said: “The Oasis back line came and went … with no noticeable effect. Most of its members turned out to be interchangeable and disposable, with fans not really caring who was beating the skins or twanging the bass.” I’m sure the band, and a fair few fans, wouldn’t see it that way – but it’s certainly true that they can pale next to the Gallaghers. Here’s who’s in the reunion lineup, in case they’ve got a bit hazy for you.
Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs
While the non-Gallagher members of Oasis can often be forgotten or outright unknown by the general public, there’s a good amount of fondness and recognition for Bonehead, perhaps due to his nickname, perhaps due to his sturdy yet subtly grooving rhythm guitar lines; Noel has called him the “glue” and the “spirit” of the group. He left to spend more time with his family though he darkly referred to an “atmosphere that wasn’t fun anymore”, and after tinkering around with some very low-key projects for a number of years, re-entered the Oasis cinematic universe as Liam Gallagher’s touring guitarist. He then had to down tools for a time while he underwent successful treatment for tonsil cancer – so there will be an extra-affectionate roar when he takes his place on the front line tonight.
Gem Archer
Guitarist Archer was part of the Creation Records stable alongside Oasis in the 90s with his mostly forgotten band Heavy Stereo, a none-so-90s band name with the even more 90s album title Deja Voodoo. He replaced Bonehead on rhythm guitar in 1999 during the Standing on the Shoulder of Giants era, and while he didn’t play on that album, he did on the final three – and would trade lead guitar with Noel. There are a few Archer-penned songs across those albums including Love Like a Bomb and To Be Where There’s Life. He was then part of the post-Oasis Liam-fronted band Beady Eye and later a member of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, making him very much the Switzerland of the eternal war between the brothers.
Andy Bell
On bass is another musician who was part of the Creation Records fold, as the co-founder of the still-extant Ride, as well as Hurricane #1 – a band Bell said was inspired by Oasis (just listen to those drum fills and chord changes on their most enduring hit Step Into My World). He joined Oasis around the same time as Archer, replacing Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan, and like Archer, played on the final three albums, contributing a couple of his own songs to Don’t Believe the Truth. Bell is really prolific: as well as those three Oasis records and two with Hurricane #1 (who continued without him), there’s been seven albums with Ride, five solo albums, six solo EPs, an appearance with Pink Floyd and, latterly, a role in supergroup Mantra of the Cosmos with Shaun Ryder, Zak Starkey and Bez (with one Noel Gallagher making a recent guest appearance).
Joey Waronker
His surname would have ensured a rough time in your average British playground growing up, but Waronker avoided that fate by being American: the son of industry scion Lenny Waronker, who was president of Warner Records and signed the likes of Prince and REM. Joey has actually drummed for the latter – imagine the howls of “nepo baby” if that happened today! – and played on nearly all of Beck’s albums, as well as with Thom Yorke, Roger Waters and loads of others. He has a slim connection to Oasis compared with the rest of the band, but will have got this gig after being the drummer for Liam’s collaborative album with the Stone Roses’s John Squire last year.
The first professional pics from the gig
Looks like Oasis haven’t allowed any photographers down to the pit, so they’re having to make do with shooting from halfway back. Still, it’s thrilling to see them back together – with Bonehead perhaps diplomatically stationed between the Gallaghers.
Laura Snapes
Some Might Say, and the vocal harmonies cut through for the first time on this one. Genuinely so cool to hear them together for the first time – I’ve never seen them before. And I love this song’s silly, groovy pivot into the chorus.
The contrast in their faces is funny: Noel looks very placid and as if he’s concentrating, meanwhile I’ve always loved how Liam hangs off the mic like a bulldog pulling a toy out of your hands.
Laura Snapes
Ok. I’ve had three beers. But Morning Glory moves in a way that I imagine is how it feels to grind down a long rail on a skateboard – high-wire, pure and free.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Morning Glory next, as I know from actually watching the gig in my bedroom via a live stream by a certain YouTube user. This is a new facet of the modern gig experience afforded by 5G and smartphones, one that was supercharged by the Eras tour. I’m getting a full whack of that disparaging “what’s the story, morning glory” from Liam even through this crap tinny version recorded from towards the back of the room.
Laura Snapes
Finally the cement mixer sound finds the vehicle it needs – it feels like the thrill of being turned upside down by a wave in the sea. Into Acquiesce now, and there’s a proper mosh pit, you can see the front middle moving like a tide. And there’s a camera fixed to Liam’s mic so you can see right up his nose! Crowd surfers are going for it!
Oasis come on stage!
Laura Snapes
“This is not a drill, I repeat this this not a drill” reads a giant message on the screens behind the stage. It rolls into a montage of tabloid rumours. And then without any preamble, it’s straight into Hello. Liam in a nice technical looking parka, Noel in a denim shirt. Pint cups being lobbed. Shivers down my legs.
