We’re nearly to the finale of Oasis’ first show of two sellout performances at Pasadena’s cavernous Rose Bowl, and guitarist/sometime-singer/founder Noel Gallagher is scrunching his face up in concern.
“I can’t really hear you,” he points out, having asked for a young woman in the audience’s name amidst a backdrop of crowd noise. “But this next song’s for you. She’s been in tears all night, this girl,” Gallagher says by way of introducing “Don’t Look Back In Anger,”the band’s fan-favorite singalong. “Which I hope is not a review of the fucking gig,” he says in a sarcastic aside, the still-sobbing, Oasis-shirt-wearing girl in question now visible on the band’s giant video screens to the rest of the 90,000-plus in attendance tonight, shaking her head “no” as if at least gamely attempting to play along with Noel’s self-skewering joke.
You can hardly blame the band’s longtime fans for crying their eyes out at the mere prospect of an Oasis reunion gig. For many years (specifically: 2009 after a backstage argument in Paris finally provoked Noel’s departure from his own band, until 2024 when both Noel and his brother Liam tweeted “the guns have fallen silent, the stars have aligned, the great wait is over. Come see, it will not be televised,” effectively ending their 15-year feud), fans, pop-culture observers, casuals and bookmakers had put very long-to-nonexistent odds on the Brothers Gallagher ever patching up their notorious warring-sibling routine in favor of reconvening their famously unstable band.
The group had swapped various members over the years and was on the commercial decline at the point of its breakup, but it was always the two Mancunian/Irish brothers—58-year-old songwriter/guitarist Noel and 52-year-old voice-of-a-generation Liam—who formed the core of Oasis musically and attitudinally. Essentially, Noel and Liam together (along with trademark sneers and anoraks) at any one time in any one place is Oasis. So, our tragic heroine for the evening—her tears presumably brushed aside—could join nearly 100,000 of her brethren in singing along to a song that Noel himself claims he can’t decipher (written, as it was, under the influence of various powdered illicit substances), which speaks of starting a revolution from one’s bed, insisting that Sally (not the crying girl, by the way) can wait/knows it’s too late and advising that we all do our best to leave our enmity and bitterness behind.
It’s advice the band itself seems to have taken to heart.
I mean, it’s hard to know whether the brothers’ long-suffering mother Peggy is responsible for brokering the truce or if the promise of dumptrucks full of cash did the trick. (Early estimates suggest that the 41-date tour could generate as much as $1.6 billion from ticket and merchandise sales alone, with the Gallaghers having negotiated a unique concessions deal that will give them 50% of the food and drink sales from each venue, which have been setting alcohol-consumption records as the tour has progressed.) But, no matter: Judging from tonight’s show, it’s a new day and a new way for Noel and Liam.
Oasis’ world reunion tour began in Cardiff, Wales, back in July and has since then hewed to precisely the same setlist throughout its various shows, with the “variety/diversity” component provided by the tour’s hand-picked opening acts: ’90s Liverpool Britpop act Cast, Verve frontman (and the subject of one of tonight’s songs, “Cast No Shadow”) Richard Ashcroft and American rock act Cage The Elephant. While longtime fans would hardly have suggested “consistency” as a core Oasis product feature given the band’s erratic history, its lengthy break is likely what drove the desire to keep things as simple as possible, particularly at the scale at which the Live ’25 tour is operating.
The shows are selling out stadia worldwide. There’s an immensely popular apparel and footwear line in collaboration with Adidas (a longtime Oasis style favorite; similarly sold-out and worn by seemingly every concert attendee at the Rose Bowl). While the band’s three-guitar lineup comprises essentially every era of its labyrinthine history, from original guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs to mid-period stalwarts guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell (on loan from Brit shoegazers Ride) to relative “new guys” Christian Madden (who has played keyboards with both brothers previously) and Joey Waronker (a drummer whose résumé includes R.E.M., Beck, Thom Yorke, Norah Jones and many others).
Given the sheer volume of moving pieces involved in pulling off a tour of this magnitude after a 15-year hiatus, a setlist heavy on hits from the band’s early work—1994’s Definitely Maybe, 1995’s (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, 1997’s underloved and underrated Be Here Now and the fantastic 1998 early singles/b-sides compilation The Masterplan—is both a welcome development for fans and no doubt embraced by the band members themselves, who were fine form and have had the pleasure of watching their best-known and most-beloved tunes sung back to them at top volume night in and night out.
Having been born and raised in Los Angeles, I can say (with confidence, but also, with love) that Angelenos know how to sing, they just choose not to—the prevailing “too cool for fan things” vibe often gets the best of even the most admiring Southern California audience. But that was absolutely not the case this evening. Oasis reeled off anthem after anthem with seeming ease as the Rose Bowl roared its approval and showed its affection (and lyrical knowledge) for “Wonderwall,” “Some Might Say,” “Cigarettes & Alcohol,” “Supersonic,” “Stand By Me,” the band’s 1994 triple-platinum single “Live Forever” and, of course, “Champagne Supernova,” a nonsensical series of aphorisms-in-song that still dependably brings down the house every night as the final encore before fireworks light up the sky above the venue and the brothers embrace, walking arm-in-arm from stage. All backed with state-of-the-art graphics that split the difference between Yellow Submarine-era Beatles illustrations and the sort of modern camera work and thematic backing that punters have become accustomed to seeing from Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and other first-division pop artists.
To be sure, it’s a rock ’n’ roll show, but with all the bells and whistles of modern-pop machinery attached.
Beyond the encores, the most emotional moment of the evening came early: the non-LP single “Acquiesce.” It’s that rare Oasis song featuring lead vocals from both Liam (verses) and Noel (chorus) with a lyric line that Noel has taken great pains to point out is not about the brothers’ relationship, but which gives pause when the words come to life from the stage:
“Because we need each other, we believe in one another/And I know we’re going to uncover what’s sleepin’ in our soul.”
If I get to be the one to make up my own interpretation of “Slowly walking down the hall/Faster than a cannonball” (as Noel has insisted to interviewers on many occasions), then I also get to make this not-particularly-huge leap: These two musical siblings—more than the Kinks’ Davies brothers, the Black Crowes’ Robinson brothers, the Everly Brothers, the Reids of Jesus and Mary Chain fame—may have had their differences over the decades, but they have somehow managed to salvage a partnership that reaches fans in a very deep and abiding place.
A magical night in a bucket-list venue for any fan of live music, regardless of the genre. It may have been a Gallagher Brothers reunion, but it also felt surprisingly like a high-school reunion on steroids for attendees.
—Corey duBrowa
