The impossible may soon become reality; Oasis posted a vague teaser on social media today after rumors of the beloved Britpop band’s reunion snowballed online. The short clip uploaded to Oasis’ official X and Instagram accounts displays a date, 27.08.24, and an announcement time of 8 a.m. (no time zone is mentioned). If they reunite, it would be the first time Oasis have played together in 15 years, following relentless, stubborn feuding between Liam and Noel Gallagher.
Yesterday (August 24), The Sunday Times claimed that, according to “industry insiders,” Oasis would reunite in 2025 for a 10-night headlining run at London’s Wembley Stadium and additional concerts at Heaton Park in Manchester, the band’s hometown. As fans reacted to those rumors on X, Liam Gallagher began replying with statements like “News to me,” “I know nothing,” and “Your scared how do you think I feel.” One X user then called Manchester’s Heaton Park “a terrible venue,” and Gallagher responded, “See you down the front you big fanny.” During his Reading Festival set on Friday evening (August 23), he also dedicated his performance of “Half the World Away” to “Noel fucking Gallagher.”
Oasis’ final lineup included Liam and Noel Gallagher, guitarist Gem Archer, and bassist Andy Bell when they disbanded in 2009. That same year, the two brothers got into a heated argument that eventually boiled over into a last-minute cancelation of their scheduled performance at the French festival Rock en Seine mere hours before Oasis were slated to play. “It is with some sadness and great relief...I quit Oasis tonight,” Noel Gallagher wrote in a statement on the band’s website that same evening. “People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”
Rumors of an Oasis reunion have swirled for years now, but nothing has stuck. Previously, Noel Gallagher said he would be open to returning to the band for 100 million British pounds ($135 million USD), prompting Liam to then claim that he would join an Oasis reunion for free.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Oasis’ landmark debut album, Definitely Maybe. They previously announced a special reissue of that LP to ring in the milestone, and it’s slated to arrive later this week on August 30.
See where “Don’t Look Back in Anger” lands on Pitchfork’s list “The 250 Best Songs of the 1990s” and read “The 50 Best Britpop Albums.”
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The legendary British rock band are reportedly eyeing a series of massive gigs in Manchester and London in the summer of 2025.
By Abid Rahman
International Editor, Digital
Have the Gallagher brothers finally buried the hatchet? There is growing speculation that Liam and Noel have put aside their legendary differences to reunite Oasis and undertake what is sure to be one of the most anticipated series of gigs in the U.K. in decades.
Citing music industry insiders, The Times of London reported on Saturday that Oasis is set to play a series of concerts in the summer of 2025, with “multiple vast gigs” planned for Heaton Park in Manchester and Wembley Stadium in London. The Times reports there are even early murmurings of Oasis even potentially headlining Glastonbury next year.
The speculation went into overdrive on Sunday, when the official Oasis social channels posted a short video with just the date, Aug. 27, suggesting an announcement was incoming. Noel’s Twitter account also tweeted the same short video.
pic.twitter.com/Gix1lFPQXa
Oasis haven’t played live together since August 2009, with the band breaking up before a performance at the Rock en Seine festival near Paris that same month. News reports at the time suggested there had been a series of verbal and physical altercations between Liam and Noel leading up to and during the French festival. On Oasis’ official website at that time, Noel released a short statement that said he was leaving and effectively breaking up the band. “It is with some sadness and great relief…I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer,” Noel wrote.
Since the birth of Oasis, Liam and Noel’s prickly relationship has been a defining aspect of the Manchester band, and their public squabbling was reliable tabloid fodder for much of the 1990s and 2000s, and also led to both quitting for short periods. After they officially broke up, the Gallagher brothers have continued their very public, often very funny, feud ever since. Noel once described Liam as “the angriest man you’ll ever meet … a man with a fork in a world of soup,” and Liam has routinely referred to Noel in mocking terms on social media, with a fondness for referring to his older brother as a “potato.”
A rapprochement between the siblings has been discernible in recent years, with Liam very keen on a reunion and Noel suggesting in interviews that he would consider it if the price was right. In a May 2021 interview, Noel said he would do it if he was offered $130 million.
If Oasis does confirm that they will reform for gigs in 2025, next summer will also mark the 30th anniversary since the release of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, the band’s best known, best-selling and most critically acclaimed album. The album, which has sold more than 22 million copies worldwide and broke the band in the U.S., contained the hit singles “Some Might Say,” “Roll With It,” “Wonderwall,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Champagne Supernova.”
Coming to prominence during the Britpop era in the early to mid-’90s, Oasis’ other notable albums include their 1994 debut Definitely Maybe (which features the singles “Supersonic,” “Shakermaker,” “Live Forever” and “Cigarettes & Alcohol”), 1997’s Be Here Now (which features the singles “D’You Know What I Mean?,” “Stand by Me,” “All Around the World” and “Don’t Go Away”), 2000’s Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (featuring the singles “Go Let It Out,” “Where Did It All Go Wrong?,” “Who Feels Love?” and “Sunday Morning Call”) and 2002’s Heathen Chemistry (featuring the singles “The Hindu Times,” “Stop Crying Your Heart Out,” “Little by Little,” “She Is Love” and “Songbird”).
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And so Sally, and indeed everybody else, must wait only a bit longer: 15 years to the week that Oasis played their last gig, rumours are swirling that finally, seriously this time, one of Britain’s biggest bands could be reforming.
Industry insiders are adamant that next summer will see Noel and Liam Gallagher reunite on the same stage for the first time since the V Festival in Stafford on August 22, 2009.
Cancel next year’s holiday plans, figure out the childcare, save the pennies — Oasis look set to take over Manchester and London in the summer of 2025 with multiple vast gigs planned at Heaton Park and Wembley Stadium respectively. One rumour suggests the latter venue is booked for ten nights, meaning the eight-gig record set by Taylor Swift this year will survive a mere 12 months.
After this article was published Liam Gallagher appeared to confirm shows were planned, telling a user on X who had replied to a Sunday Times tweet: “See you down the front”.
There are also murmurings that a Glastonbury headliner slot may be added to the schedule, meaning that 30 years after the release of their second album, 1995’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, turned them into global rock stars, the country will once again be gripped by the power and drama of arguably, and argumentatively, the nation’s most famous brothers.
Their frosty relationship certainly seems to be thawing. In the years since the night Liam damaged one of his elder brother’s guitars during a backstage altercation in Paris and Noel quit, bringing to an end the band that made them millions, the siblings have exchanged various hostile words. “A sad little dwarf,” said Liam about Noel. “I liked my Mum until she gave birth to Liam,” quipped Noel. The feud was real and the anger was volatile — but last week that seemed to be changing.
In a record label video released on Thursday to mark the 30th anniversary of Definitely Maybe, their debut album, Noel was uncharacteristically complimentary about Liam. “When I would sing a song, it would sound good. When he sung it, it sounded great,” said Noel of his younger brother. He went on to say: “I can’t sing Cigarettes & Alcohol, Rock’n’Roll Star and all that. I don’t have the same attitude as him. My voice is half a Guinness on a Tuesday — it’s all right. Liam’s is ten shots of tequila on a Friday.”
This is some contrast to an interview five years ago when Noel said, “I don’t listen to [Liam’s] albums because I can’t stand his voice. It’s unsophisticated music for unsophisticated people made by an unsophisticated man.”
That was then, though. Last week Noel was praising his estranged brother’s career. “What he did was inspire the kids at the front to do something, do you know what I mean? ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’ And he’s still doing that now.”
• Definitely Maybe at 30: every song ranked
But then Oasis have never really gone away. At the Reading and Leeds festivals this week, Liam ends a sold-out 12-date arena tour that has seen him play Definitely Maybe to enraptured crowds. Since the split, both men have enjoyed success with solo projects, but it was always the Oasis songs they played that got the strongest reactions. At Glastonbury this year, Don’t Look Back In Anger was played over the speakers before Coldplay came on, and the Oasis track received the biggest singalong of the night.
Because Oasis are far from a relic that appeals only to those old enough to remember CDs. Despite splitting back when Gordon Brown was prime minister, the band have ratcheted up a huge fanbase among teenagers who were not born when the Gallaghers were in their pomp. Oasis have 21 million monthly listeners on Spotify, compared with 11 million for their erstwhile Britpop rivals Blur. No wonder they feel confident in booking ten Wembley gigs compared with Blur’s two last summer. Oasis were huge back then, and they still are.
Formed in 1991, Oasis tore up the dreary British music scene with their pummelling rock’n’roll, the soundtrack to Tony Blair’s Cool Britannia and a nostalgic glow nobody wants to leave behind. The squabbling brothers at the band’s heart became a national obsession to rival the royal family. Released in 1994, Definitely Maybe became Britain’s fastest-selling debut album, while a staggering 2.5 million people applied for tickets for their two dates at Knebworth in summer 1996.
The Gallaghers have yet to comment, leaving fans to speculate on the reasons for the reunion. Maybe songwriter Noel envied his brother’s recent tour, where Liam sang the songs Noel had written but Noel was not there to take the acclaim — and Liam’s voice sounded flawless. Perhaps it is something Sir Keir Starmer can take credit for: the band last played together when there was a Labour government in power — might they just have been biding their time?
• Noel Gallagher on 30 years of Definitely Maybe
It is also worth noting that last year Noel and his second wife, Sarah MacDonald, divorced, with reports putting her settlement as high as £20 million. MacDonald’s relationship with her brother-in-law was almost as fractious as her former husband’s. When Liam played Glastonbury in 2019, she said in a social media post — swiftly deleted — that he was a “fat twat doing his tribute act, balancing a tambourine on his head”.
Liam, meanwhile, called her “proper dark” and claimed Noel was “desperate to get Oasis back … but his missus won’t let him”. If there is new music, how Liam would enjoy singing those break-up songs. For now, though, let the guesswork continue.
Who will be in the band? Liam, Noel and rhythm guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs seem certain, given the latter has toured with Liam recently, but the original drummer, Tony McCarroll, and original bassist, Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan, have not played with either Gallagher since Definitely Maybe and 1997’s third album Be Here Now, respectively. Also, what will they play? A vast chunk of the first two albums for sure, with key hits — Stand By Me, Stop Crying Your Heart Out, The Importance Of Being Idle — from their other albums too.
Whatever the setlist though, with no World Cup, Olympic Games or Taylor Swift tours next year, an Oasis reunion will clearly be the event of the summer. It may have felt less likely with every passing year, but some bands are meant to live for ever.
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