THE Oasis reunion rolls into Wembley tonight for another weekend of rock ’n’ roll recollections.
The two nights at the fabled national stadium cap a run of shows here in Blighty that have not just given original fans a Supersonic blast of nostalgia but have also crossed the generational divide.
Far from just beer-bellied 40 and 50-somethings reliving the Nineties, the sold-out shows up and down the country have been packed with youngsters basking in the Champagne Supernova – and singing many songs word for word.
Here, two fans from different generations reveal how they found their music tastes united – Sun man Will Hagerty, 55, and his lad, Sonny Carlisle, 18.
WILL’S STORY
THERE are milestones in a boy’s life which will stay embedded in his father’s memory for ever.
Learning to walk; first goal for the school football team; collecting exam results; his first pint at the pub.
And now there’s a new contender — the night he sang along to Don’t Look Back In Anger at Wembley, hands in the air, soaked in hurled beer, gazing around at a panorama of beaming faces and phone lights shining like stars.
When I invited my 18-year-old to witness the historic Oasis reunion, I fully expected a sneering “no thanks” with dismissive eye-roll or, at best, a made-up excuse about having something else planned that night.
Like thousands of others I’d failed to get tickets in the official sale.
But as my FOMO spiralled in the following weeks, and after a few stiffeners, I booked a pricey pair for the second Wem-bley show on a re-sale site.
And I needed to recruit a com- panion just in case I had not been scammed.
With my other half detesting Oasis (she was firmly with Team Blur in the hyped-up rivalry of 1995), I reached out to soon-off-to-uni Sonny, with a promise of free drinks to compensate for the horror of being seen with me as I sang badly, dad-danced and tearfully droned on about the good old days.
Sneering vocals
“Yeah I’ll come,” he said. “But I only know a couple of their songs.”
So we looked up the set list from the first night at Cardiff, and Sonny started to get acquainted on Spotify.
I was 23 in 1994 when Oasis restored my faith in guitar bands after the explosion in dance music and club culture.
Their raw energy, layers of crunching riffs and Liam’s unique, sneering vocals were a magical combination, perfect for that moment and best experienced live.
I saw them play three times between 1995 and 2004 but always longed for a chance to revisit the early years and the first two iconic albums, before Liam and Noel’s relationship broke down and the band started going through the motions.
So this reunion, 30 years after I first saw Oasis headline Glastonbury, ignited a nostalgic spark in me unlike anything since the Stone Roses got back together in 2012.
And in this age of instant TikTok gratification and short attention spans, I wanted my son to experience the unbridled euphoria of a proper rock ’n’ roll gig. With me.
Glorious Nineties
When we arrived at Wembley in late July, we discovered that our second-hand tickets were for the front standing area, yards from the stage, and we were surrounded by fans of all ages — not just a football crowd pondering the mid-life crisis.
There were fathers, sons, mums, daughters and a few grandparents — most of them clad in Oasis merch. Everywhere around us we could hear strangers chatting about when they first saw the band back in the day.
Perhaps because of Oasis’ thicker back catalogue and a worldwide notoriety, there were a lot more teenagers and young adults than I remember seeing at the Stone Roses reunion show in Manchester’s Heaton Park.
The moment the Gallaghers emerged on stage hand in hand to a deafening roar, the youngsters in the crowd — aware of Liam and Noel’s warring past — knew they were privileged to be witnessing history even if they didn’t know all the songs.
And us older fans were transported back to the glorious Nineties — a simpler, carefree decade, when we lived in the moment in those precious times before mobile phones and the internet.
When I was 18, it was unusual — if not unheard of — for teenagers to go to rock concerts with their parents.
Thanks, Oasis, for (briefly) making me a cool dad.
SONNY’S STORY
WHEN Dad invited me to spend a couple of hours in a stadium with thousands of tubby, chorusing bald blokes, I wondered how different it could be to going to the footie every fortnight.
Obviously I’d heard of Oasis, but for many of my generation the Gallagher brothers’ hatred of each other was more famous than their music.
I never imagined I would see them live.
I’m a huge music fan — especially indie bands such as Fontaines DC and Arctic Monkeys. But I find my music from streaming or gaming soundtracks and that just never led me to Oasis.
When I recently started to rewind to past decades to explore classic groups such as Blur, The Smiths, Pulp and Gorillaz, Spotify suggested Oasis.
I knew the banger anthems like Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back In Anger, but not many of the lesser-known tracks.
When the reunion was announced, I could tell it was huge news. My parents debated it in the kitchen — Dad was really excited but Mum couldn’t care less.
She said Oasis riffs and lyrics have the depth of nursery rhymes and jumped on the fact the tickets were so expensive.
When Dad said he had got some, he persuaded me this was a moment I would want to witness.
Hands held aloft
To be honest, he had said the same thing twice before, trying to convince me to see Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones, and I had no desire to see those dinosaurs.
But this felt different — people my age were talking about Oasis.
Some of my friends made it out to be the event of the century and a few managed to get tickets.
I had never been to a gig at Wembley Stadium before. The size of the crowd was mind-blowing. We stood shoulder to shoulder with sweaty blokes in their fifties, with their teenage sons and daughters who were equally excited (but without the nostalgia).
Beneath the Oasis bucket hats you could sense the overwhelming anticipation.
We were close to the stage for Richard Ashcroft of The Verve’s support set, and when he did Bittersweet Symphony (which I knew as a TV footie theme tune) the atmosphere was incredible.
This was going to be something special.
Perfect ending
Suddenly they were there, the rest of the band first, followed by the Gallagher brothers, hands held aloft, triumphant, that famous hatred as much a thing of the past as Dad’s vinyl collection.
Oasis were sensational and really loud. Liam’s voice sounded brilliant when you think that he was only 21 when Definitely Maybe came out.
He’s 53 now — nearly as old as my dad!
The highlight for me was Cigarettes & Alcohol — it’s one of the songs I listened to constantly in the shower during the weeks before the Wembley gig.
Liam got the crowd to do the Poznan backwards-facing dance that fans do at Manchester City, which was really funny.
There were some Arsenal fans behind us who refused to do it, and Noel called them out and took the p*** out of Mikel Arteta. I enjoyed that.
I also loved the encore of Champagne Supernova (although the lyric “slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball” really makes no sense at all).
It was a perfect ending to a memorable day, with the crowd still singing the anthem as we queued for the Tube station.
Me and my friends who were lucky enough to go have been gloating about it to our mates.
I have seen concerts by Billie Eilish, Arctic Monkeys and Sam Fender before.
But this was the best, especially as it was so important in music history. Definitely, not maybe!
