Oasis reunited: definitely maybe a triumph

Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher of British rock band Oasis perform the opening concert of their reunion tour — Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher on stage at Cardiff's Principality Stadium

(Image credit: AFP Stringer / Getty Images)

It was the reunion many fans feared would never happen. Last Friday, 16 years after they'd last performed together, Noel and Liam Gallagher strode onto the stage at Cardiff's Principality Stadium – and brought the house down, said Mark Beaumont in The Independent.

A huge multi-generational crowd in bucket hats swayed, sang and hurled beer as Oasis tore through a roster of their biggest hits. Yet for the two million people who'd endured long queues and dynamic pricing to buy tickets for this tour, joining in a singalong to "Wonderwall", and seeing the Gallaghers, now 58 and 52, reunited (for a reported £50 million each) was only part of the attraction: they had also wanted to feel what it was like to "be there then". Because it is not only fifty-somethings who are nostalgic for the Britpop era: for millennials and Gen-Zers too it is "as halcyon as Beatlemania or the Summer of Love – a time of vivid colour, jubilant melody, political stability and affordable flats".

It's not the case that Britpop depended on Oasis, said Dorian Lynskey in The Guardian. Blur and Suede had chart hits long before Liam's snarling vocals were heard on "Supersonic" in 1994, the first of Oasis's 26 top-40 UK hits. From the Young British Artists and Kate Moss, to Euro '96 and "Trainspotting", the era's "colour was turned up with or without them". What set them apart was that, where other Britpop bands ran from it, they actually sought mass appeal. Tapping into a "communal, aspirational hedonism that suited the times", they aimed not to be interesting, but to be popular.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Not everyone was "mad for it", said Chas Newkey-Burden in The Spectator. The brothers, Liam in particular, were laddish and boorish; their fans were often no better; and Noel's songs shamelessly ripped off everyone from T. Rex to Status Quo. His lyrics are basic, with their roads that are winding and lights that are blinding, and he has said that few of his songs have real meaning; they just evoke a feeling. In that respect, they are a bit like the cocaine he and Liam were always snorting – they make you feel amazing, then it's over "and you feel soulless and empty".

But maybe it is precisely because they sound so familiar that Oasis's ripped-off tunes are so potent; perhaps it's great to feel on top of the world, even if just for a moment. Oasis weren't innovators, said Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph, but they did do something remarkable, which was to bring melody to hard rock: they were like The Beatles but with "the power of Led Zeppelin" and "the swagger of the Rolling Stones", and it made them the outstanding rock band of the age.