Oasis

The band Oasis are one of the originators of the “Britpop” sound that overtook the U.K. in the Nineties. Singer Liam Gallagher formed the group in 1991 in Manchester alongside guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, bass player Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan, and drummer Tony McCarroll. Liam’s older brother Noel Gallagher joined soon after to play lead guitar and become Oasis’s principal songwriter. The band’s 1994 debut album Definitely Maybe was a massive success in England on the strength of singles like “Live Forever,” “Supersonic,” and “Rock ‘N’ Roll Star,” each song shot through with equal parts attitude and melody.

As Oasis’s frontman, Liam Gallagher projected barely controlled danger onstage, standing nearly motionless at the microphone with his hands clasped behind his back and his neck craned upward to deliver nasal rhymes of “lifetime” and “sunshiiiine” in working-class anthems like “Cigarettes & Alcohol.” Noel Gallagher, meanwhile, played Liam’s foil on stage left, strumming his Gibson, harmonizing with his brother, and singing the occasional lead, but ultimately choosing to let the songs he wrote for the band speak for him. Musically, the Gallaghers were often in sync, but their sibling quarreling became the stuff of legend and ultimately led to the group’s breakup in 2009.

While Definitely Maybe made Oasis stars in the U.K. and Europe, their 1995 follow-up, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, broke them in the United States. The ubiquitous “Wonderwall” and the Noel-sung piano ballad “Don’t Look Back in Anger” were hits on MTV and at radio and helped introduce the Gallaghers to a larger audience. But their bread and butter remained in the U.K., and in 1996, with new drummer Alan White behind the kit, they headlined two sold-out nights at Knebworth Park, playing to a combined 250,000 fans.

Subsequent albums, like 1997’s bloated Be Here Now and 2000’s shopworn Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, failed to meet the expectations set by Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, but the Oasis name nonetheless appeared on the charts and especially in the British tabloids. There were fights, marriages, divorces, and more fights, and the press couldn’t get enough. The band also went through personnel changes, and when the group split in 2009 only Liam and Noel were original members.

Oasis released their final album, Dig Out Your Soul, in 2008. While on tour in support of the record, the Gallaghers once again got into a backstage row, this time at the 2009 Rock En Seine festival in Paris. The fight proved insurmountable and Noel quit, signaling the end of Oasis.

Fans clamoring for a reunion finally got their wish in 2024 when Liam and Noel announced they were going on tour in 2025. “The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised.” The tour kicked off in Cardiff, Wales in July, 2025 and arrived in the United States in late August, where they’ve been playing sold-out stadiums and delighting crowds —Joseph Hudak