It’s an August miracle: Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis are letting bygones be bygones and getting the band back together. The notoriously volatile Britpop legends, who broke up in 2009 after songwriter Noel’s departure and refusal to continue working with frontman Liam, are planning to re-form for a 14-date stadium tour next summer. Following days of rumors and feverish speculation, the reunion became official Tuesday morning, just ahead of the 30th anniversary of the band’s swaggering debut, Definitely Maybe.
“The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over,†the brothers wrote in a brief statement accompanying the dates. Granted, the first reunion gig is ten months away, so let’s just hope this apparent détente remains in place until then. For now, pull up a rockin’ chair and pour yourself a Champagne supernova, because we’ve got a few requests.
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Mix up the hits
It’s become trendy for nostalgia acts to do anniversary tours where they play a classic album front to back each night. Oasis could conceivably do this with (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, but such a regimented approach to set lists would quash some of the energy and volatility of their live show. It would be more fun if they shuffled up the set lists with a career-spanning selection of singles.
But make time for some deep cuts
Morning Glory? yielded so many hits that “Wonderwall†wasn’t even the first, second, or third single from it. And that’s not to mention earlier staples like “Supersonic†and “Live Forever.†But Oasis has lots of hidden gems, too, many of which appear on their outstanding 1998 B-sides compilation, The Masterplan: the rousing fan favorite “Acquiesce,†the gloriously distorted “Fade Away,†the majestic “Going Nowhere.†Oasis may have peaked too early, but from 1994 to 1997, Noel, principal songwriter of the group, was simply overflowing with remarkable songs. Even 2000’s little-loved, psychedelic-flavored Standing on the Shoulder of Giants has some choice cuts worth throwing in.
Fly to America
Oasis’s planned shows are currently all in the U.K. and Ireland. But if they’re looking to forget the site of their 1996 MTV Unplugged spat — during which Noel handled lead vocals while Liam heckled him from a balcony — they should play America for a spell. (A press release notes that “plans are underway†for the band to tour beyond Europe later in the year.) Unlike ’90s peers Suede and Pulp, Oasis was the rare Britpop act whose popularity fully translated stateside, with Morning Glory selling more than 4 million copies in the U.S. and its druggy mess of a follow-up, Be Here Now, also going platinum.
Don’t fight each other, fight Ticketmaster
As we speak, Ticketmaster executives are likely salivating in boardrooms, envisioning the fees and prices fans will endure to see a long-dormant superstar act that plenty of people would sacrifice a firstborn child to see. So imagine if the Brothers Gallagher, who rarely see eye to eye, came together for another common cause: fighting to keep the ticketing giant from ripping off their fans with exorbitant fees. Liam could tweet up a storm about the company’s monopolistic practices (which recently attracted the attention of the Justice Department), as Robert Smith did last year. If these blokes want to be perceived as the working-class heroes of yore, they gotta make their tickets affordable to the average fan.
But hire a therapist to be safe
Oasis infamously broke up following a backstage brawl between Liam and Noel at the Rock en Seine festival in 2009. That wasn’t the first time the two brothers came to blows. These guys don’t exactly have the most loving fraternal bond (Liam called Noel “a massive cunt†as recently as 2021), which is why they’ll need to bring in a top-of-the-line family therapist to help them communicate constructively and keep them from killing each other backstage. This therapist will require hazard pay, MI6-style training, and a Gallagher-to-English dictionary.
Play “Wonderwall†the Liam way, not the Noel way
Noel wrote “Wonderwall,†but Liam’s delivery of the song — as a snotty, sneering, full-band singalong — remains the definitive version. By contrast, Noel, in his post-Oasis performances, has favored a slow, soulful rendition of the classic. “It’s like Ryan Adams, innit?†Liam critiqued in 2017, referencing Adams’s own cover. “I’m not too keen on that. I like to keep it the way it is on the record.â€
Let Liam cook in interviews
Let him shit-talk anyone he wants (uh, except his bandmates). Does he agree with his brother that Matty Healy is a “slack-jawed fuckwit“? Would he call Zach Bryan a potato? Is he into Brat? Media training is for chumps.
Make a new album
Ehhhh, on second thought … when’s the last time these guys put out a great album? 1998? 2005 if we’re being very generous?
Update: A previous version of this story identified Liam as the Gallagher brother who called Matty Healy a “slack-jawed fuckwit.†It was actually Noel.