All the lights of the Principality Stadium in Cardiff suddenly went out, and the roar of the crowd's screams spread like a fireball. The intensity of the earthquake increased a notch on the Richter scale as the members of Oasis appeared on stage, Liam and Noel Gallagher together raising their arms in victory. When all that noise mixed with the giant distortion of the first guitar chord, at a monstrous volume, the excitement was so thick you could almost chew it: in a brief moment of collective revelation, these 74,500 people seemed to be aware that they were part of a historic rock event. They couldn't imagine to what extent.
Oasis started playing Hello like setting off a grenade, and Liam sang "it's good to be back" on the edge of a cliff, with anger between his teeth.
And the chorus of Morning Glory was chanted with fists held high up in the stands, the sharp sound of the three electric guitars like the blade mentioned in the lyrics or like helicopter blades, an impatient and provocative blast. With a clear and reverberation-free sound, magnificent for a stadium, the instruments and nuances were well distinguished, within a dense sonic spectrum, or a heavy blow. They had smoothed out their weaknesses and improved their strengths: energy, simplicity, a familiar air, and a distinctive twist.
And Some Might Say, a bittersweet song with a shadow of melancholy in the opening verses, culminated in a burst of euphoria, in a surge of adrenaline: the stadium turned into a shaken champagne bottle, people immersed up to their heads in a stream of energy that drags you, lifts you, and keeps you up on this journey that seemed never-ending.
And the crowd went crazy (again) because Liam asked everyone in the stadium to hug each other and turn around, and then the cheeky and lascivious riff of Cigarettes and Alcohol started playing, and darn, everyone was jumping with that song that sounds like T-Rex sung by Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, an exaltation of drug and alcohol consumption against a gray and miserable life...
And Supersonic, damn, Noel wrote it in less than an hour and it has absurd lyrics with ridiculous rhymes, it was like a slow, heavy, and threatening wrecking ball, with guitars swirling around...
It wasn't a perfect concert, but it was unforgettable
The first 74,500 people who attended the Oasis comeback embraced each other, jumped, shook like crazy. Not because Oasis were back, but because of how they did it. The most important rock concert of the year, I don't know if it was perfect, and I don't care because it was unforgettable. It had memorable moments, and those that weren't seemed like they were.
The concept of the show was that there is no show: just a very simple stage, few words between songs, and, yes, a monumental horizontal screen because here there are hardly any twenty-year-olds, so it's recorded horizontally.
In the concert's repertoire, their first two albums overshadowed the five subsequent ones, as was already happening in the last decade of their career (Little by Little, D'You Know What I Mean, or Stand By Me are wilted lettuces compared to any of their previous hits). The documentary Supersonic, co-produced by the Gallaghers, tells their story up to 1996 with the conclusion that they should have split up then and that afterwards, nothing was the same, neither artistically nor in terms of popularity. They have spent a considerable portion of their creative lives loafing around, fighting, jabbing, and making excuses, and now they have come back to play together with the certainty of making a fortune. Did they fall into self-indulgence tonight? Did they resort to nostalgia tricks? Did they want to please their devoted fans? No, no, and no.
The embrace of Noel and Liam Gallagher
Meaningless questions if we think about the encore, with Don't Look Back in Anger sung by Noel, a song of hope and optimism that was an emotional shock, with the crowd fired up, until the drum roll before the third chorus, and 74,500 throats took a breath and prepared, like loading a rifle, to shout "And so Sally can wait, she knows it's too late as we're walking on by".
But their most beloved song is Wonderwall, the glue that has united millions of people in the UK and around the world, the song sung at parties, in bars, at weddings, chosen in various public votes as one of the best songs in pop history. If it has a profound meaning, it's as a shared experience, it holds value when sung in a group, and a few minutes ago, it was sung by this incredible crowd.
The concert ended with Champagne Supernova, one of Liam Gallagher's most vulnerable performances, tonight rougher than ever. It starts as a psychedelic ballad that expands into epic halftime territory with layers of guitars and soaring dynamics. It is one of the group's most complex and complete creations, a brilliant artistic triumph and a perfect finale.
The crowd applauded, and then, come on, really? Look at them: Liam and Noel Gallagher are hugging. Well, now we've seen everything, you can close 2025, we've reached all the endings. I mean, remember, it's not just that they fought at some concerts and the group dissolved in a sea of reproaches, it's that in the last 16 years of separation, they have maintained a constant flow of insults, contempt, and meticulous physical distance. Seeing them hug? Give that option to an AI, and you'll see it explode going pufff.
Noel Gallagher, Oasis guitarist and composer.Scott A GarfittScott A Garfitt/Invision/AP
Cardiff, taken over by Oasis fans
The center of Cardiff has been Oasisland since the morning, with thousands of people in the city center wearing T-shirts or going to buy them (waiting for over an hour in line to access the merchandise stores). Pubs and bars have had the best sales of the year while the group's songs were blasting at full volume in every corner. The atmosphere was also historic.
Focused and powerful, Liam Gallagher has been the best arrogant tough guy, a voiceless and talentless tough guy, but so full of confidence that he seems to have a tattoo on his heart that says: modesty doesn't get you anywhere. He had a killer look even when he sang a splendid 'Live Forever,' a tribute to his mother, who raised them alone after divorcing a violent father who beat her and gave Noel beatings, a song that celebrates camaraderie, friendship, and hope and culminates in a chant to "live forever."
To the right of the stage, Noel Gallagher is a compositional genius so irregular that he can alternate pastiches and clichés with authentic greatness. The entire story of both could be summed up in one idea: the revenge of the outcasts. That essence is what pulsates in Rock 'n' Roll Star, an archetypal composition without any special features that acquires the dimension of a colossus thanks to the challenging and deafening performance that echoed tonight against the stadium's ceiling, closed to make the atmosphere in the cauldron even denser. Liam Gallagher often says: "A band is not defined solely by its music. If you don't have attitude and only have good songs, then you're a bore."
With a visceral hatred for posing, dressed without grace, foul-mouthed, arrogant, proudly uncultured, and with a frenetic craving for drugs and partying, the brothers from Manchester have often behaved like simple-minded bumpkins with a populist discourse. They themselves have boasted that their songs lack depth, that they do not stem from an intellectual or conceptual creative process, but rather spring from pure intuition, that they are not a subject to be analyzed, but experienced. But their bumpkin behavior has connected more and better with people than any of the groups from the fabulous era of Britpop. Oasis was the epitome of a people's band and three decades later maintains excellent streaming numbers on digital platforms and has been elevated to a legendary status by their generation, which was the majority this Friday in the stands and on the stadium floor. Today, some of their songs are indestructible classics that time has favored, giving them an immortal aura with this swarm-shaped noise.
The tension between Liam and Noel was the fuel that fed the group and caused it to explode in August 2009. From that tension emanate their bellicose and dirty sound and their enraged, escapism-triggered songs. They hated each other from the very beginning, even before they had recorded anything, they separated for the first time in 1994, but tonight they have stopped throwing punches (easy joke) and have allied to vindicate their legacy and themselves. If their solo careers have demonstrated anything, it is that they function like two large cogwheels that separately do not amount to much, but together enter a powerful convergence.
Oasis 2025: the biggest tour in the United Kingdom
The Oasis reunion tour is the most anticipated tour in the history of the United Kingdom and one of the most awaited of the year worldwide. Over 10 million people queued virtually when the first tickets went on sale (priced between 85 and 315 euros, not accounting for dynamic pricing increases). It will also be one of the most lucrative tours ever seen, according to a recent study by Barclays, estimating that in the UK alone, fans will spend a total of 1.25 billion euros.
Currently, there are 41 confirmed concerts, to be held during 2025 in stadiums across 17 cities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, America, and Asia. The very unstable relationship of the Gallagher brothers makes it equally likely that they will expand the tour to Europe in 2026 as they will break their current alliance at any moment.
Time has not eroded the power of Oasis's great songs, but it has shattered Richard Ashcroft. He was a god in the 90s with The Verve, but this afternoon his 45 minutes as the opening act sounded mostly old, and only sparked some interest in the audience, theoretically captivated by his music, when he performed his most famous 'hits', particularly a powerful Bittersweet Symphony super intense, almost rapped, for 10 minutes.