A love letter to Oasis
Liam's and Noel’s music, wit, accents and pass-agg attitudes helped shape my teenage years.
An audio version of this article (narrated by moi) is available here:
I sketched a picture of Liam Gallagher on my bedroom wall when I was 15. It wasn’t as awful as it sounds – I could draw likenesses fairly well. What was awful was sketching it in pencil directly onto crappy flowery wallpaper rather than a white-paint base, meaning I couldn’t go over the outline or fill in the gaps. Eventually I gave up and obliterated Liam by covering the whole wall in moody-angst dark blue. But hey, it’s the thought that counts, right? No, sod that, it’s the adoration that counts.
Because, yes, I adored Oasis. I still do. I was 10 when 1994’s Definitely Maybe came out, 11 when (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? was released. They were among the first albums I bought with my own pocket money (the very first was Right Said Fred’s Up on cassette. Yep.) Investing in the Oasis albums was wise, though, as I played those CDs to death. I bought the later records too, but none made such an impact (although I’ll die on the hill that Be Here Now isn’t as bad as people say, with Stand By Me an all-time classic song).
I’m absolutely gutted I didn’t get tickets to the reunion gigs (which started on Friday in Cardiff). I tried, but four hours deep into the Ticketmaster queue, I got booted off for being a robot. I bloody wish I was a robot. As it stands, non-robotic me still hasn’t seen Oasis live.
Which sucks because Oasis were fucking epic.
I can’t describe to people who weren’t in it how perfectly they captured a moment. Britpop marked a cultural shift, and Oasis embodied that sense of freedom, possibility, recklessness and togetherness that feels so scarce now. Blur and Pulp were clever and sardonic (and I liked them too), but Liam and Noel were rude, brash, hilarious – and belting out anthems. Anthem after anthem after anthem. Songs made for screaming at the top of your lungs with your arms flung around the shoulders of strangers. The fact that people still feel exactly the same about their music – and behave in exactly the same way whenever and wherever it's played – says it all. When I went travelling around SE Asia in 2018, (ooooh, betcha didn’t know I’d been travelling seeing as I never talk about it), I couldn’t walk into a bar without tripping over some shoeless (why do they always have bare feet?), shell-necklace-wearing, rich-but-pretending-not-to-be tosser ‘finding himself’ by playing Wonderwall badly. Yet, it never failed to start a singalong – and I’d be there, singing along.
I’m not a music writer, so I won’t pretend to know what Oasis mean to music history. What I do know, though, is that they made me feel seen and excited when I was a ratty, pain-in-the-arse teenager convinced no one had ever felt the way I did about anything ever. They were electric.
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It wasn’t just the music or the lyrics (which, let’s be honest, are both brilliant and bullshit in equal measure). It was Liam’s walk, his scowl, the way he snarled when he sang, his devastating snipes (on Jamie Oliver: “I got told off for throwing stones at his windows, pissed-up, asking him to chuck down some bacon rolls”.) It was the way he stood. How attractive he was – not in a typical frontman way, but in a “I’m going to make you feel like a legend or a bellend, but I’m not sure which yet” kind of way.
It was Noel’s wit and gift for casually slagging off anyone, come what may, and his knack for writing arena-filling bangers like it was just another Tuesday. It was the brothers’ unashamed desire to be the biggest band in the world. To be rich, famous, and everywhere. Plus, and I’m saying this again because it meant the most to me, they were just so, so funny – in such a uniquely British way. Sure, sometimes they were genuine arseholes and I’m not saying I agreed with everything they said, but there was a wink and a smile to a lot of it. A real ‘we’re in this shit together’ vibe. And bloody hell, aren’t we missing a bit of that nowadays?
(One of my favourite moments is when they were told to mime on Top of the Pops in 1995, Liam and Noel swapped roles just to take the piss.)
Then there were their accents. Back in the mid-90s, the only voices on telly and radio were posh. Even non-posh presenters were trained to sound posh. ‘BBC English’ or ‘RP’ (received pronunciation) was sold as neutral, but it wasn’t – it was exclusionary. It was southern, educated, and it reinforced class and geographical divides. It was the only accent you ever heard publicly and so made anyone who sounded different feel like they didn’t belong.
Britpop played a big role in changing this. Oasis (Mancunian), Blur (London/mockney), Pulp (Sheffield), The Verve (Wigan), and Manic Street Preachers (Welsh) all leaned into their regional identities. Oasis sounded as Manc as it was possible to sound and even called out Blur’s Damon Albarn for being a ‘fake cockney’. This was somewhat fair, considering Damon’s since admitted he hammed it up. Yet, even that was interesting – that pretending not to sound posh was the new cool. I can’t stress enough how thrilling it was for people who talked like you and your friends to be given a platform because they were successful, respected, and adored.
So, if you’ve already been, or if you’ll soon be going to one of the reunion gigs, please know that I hate you. And yes, I know that you don’t care. Enjoy it and sing along as loud as you can with as much swagger as you can while wearing a bucket hat.
Just One More Thing
Not seeing Oasis is only the second worst gig-miss of my life. First place goes to Michael Jackson. (Yes, I’ve seen the documentary – this was before it was released, when he was just an eccentric genius.) I had tickets for the This Is It tour in 2009. I was a massive Jacko fan and couldn’t have been more excited.
And then he fucking died.
I was at Glastonbury when it happened. Rumours swirled on the Thursday, but we couldn’t check because no one’s shitty flip phones worked. Hours passed before it was confirmed. This seismic moment happened in culture – and I was at the biggest music festival in the world. It felt surreal. Every act did tributes. His music was everywhere. It was sad, weird and oddly magical.
I got a refund for my tickets and later found out that people sold theirs as souvenirs for thousands upon thousands of pounds. So, not only did I miss out on the concert, I missed out on a windfall. Still, knowing what we know now, maybe it wasn’t the loss I thought it was back then. (Bet it would’ve been a good gig, though.)
*Exceedingly modest reminder that I have written eight bestselling mental-health books which have been translated into dozens of languages. I’ve also written a book about the TV show Friends which would make a delightful gift for any Friends obsessives. All are available to buy online or at your local bookshop.