A single live show on American soil is all it took for the hyperbole surrounding the reunion of a certain Britpop outfit to reach its apex. “Oasis finally conquer America,” screamed one headline following the gig last Thursday at Chicago’s Soldier Field. “Oasis rewrite history,” went another. Even CNN got involved with their quasi-thinkpiece, “Oasis never really cared about America. Is America ready to care about them?”
Ok, let’s everyone slow their roll with it.
Like any other act that explodes in popularity in the United Kingdom, Oasis inevitably sought to break the States. They had the songs, the sales, the brashness, and a penchant for being outspoken and downright dismissive toward peers and legends. Still, it never happened. Like a dozen artists before them, Brothers Gallagher – Liam and Noel – failed, despite being heralded almost from the outset as English icons. Part of it was their own undoing, which went far beyond the curiosity of siblings in a band who didn’t particularly like one another.
From the notorious 1994 crystal meth-fueled gig in Los Angeles to Liam eschewing the beginning of a 1996 American leg to go house-hunting in England for a few days, Oasis never quite found their tour footing here, which is a major downside of being authentically petulant rock stars. The band stalled at filling theater-sized venues and was a favorite sub-headliner for radio station festivals like jingle balls, but that’s about it as far as the mainstream music fan was concerned. Eventually, the group tried to save face and said it didn’t matter if the States never went mad for them.
Now, it’s over a decade and a half plus since the Gallagher’s oft-simmering, oft-boiling over squabbling went full powder keg before taking the stage at a festival in France. Noel ducked out prior to a note being played, said he couldn’t work with Liam another day in a quickly penned press release, and just like that, there was no more Oasis.
Oddly, it was bigger news here that they broke up than any other news at what would be considered the peak of the band’s popularity. But as long as the brothers continued sniping at one another in the press and, especially in Liam’s case, on social media, they remained the band least likely to not reunite.
The sibling rivalry continued until about a year ago as the Gallaghers revealed they were reconvening, setting a good chunk of the planet into a tizzy – including America. When the proposed list of dates was leaked, there were a lot of people who straight-up balked. No way was Oasis going to fill North American stadiums; it didn’t matter how long they’d been gone.
Turns out the pundits were wrong, as nostalgia often has a greater pull than logic. Nine dates in North America sold out immediately, including five across three cities in the United States. Live Nation President and CEO Michael Rapino said the shows had “[t]he most demand in history.”
Cut to Chicago, and the crowd sing-alongs during “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” were deafening. Millennials, boomers, Gen X, Gen Z – all cohorts showed up with arms slung around shoulders – random people in a lot of cases – and pints of beer sloshed about onto the floor and clothing. Oasis was all anyone could think about… and the show at Soldier Field wasn’t for 24 hours. No, this was at The Cubby Bear in Chicago’s Wrigleyville area, and the band onstage wasn’t Oasis, but the tribute act SuperSonic.
“When we heard about the actual dates, we came up with the idea of ‘We got to follow them around,” SuperSonic’s Dylan Shepherd, who performs as Liam, told Vanyaland. “That’s our goal. Let’s follow them around and do pre-show/pre-parties.”
Hailing from Toronto, SuperSonic was conceived the same year Oasis broke up, in 2009. They’ve since played around the world, billed as “North America’s Tribute to Oasis,” filling a void as the myth of the genuine article grew in the years since. Shepherd saw the reunion in Manchester, home to the Gallaghers, in early July and said it was “unbelievable.”
“All you could hear was Oasis through every window of every shop and every… every corner you turned, it was Oasis,” Shepherd said. “It’s like a cultural phenomenon these guys, especially in their home city and in England and the UK and in Europe in general. They are like gods. And yeah, in America, I just think they… They stumbled around America a little bit, right?”
Now, a few shows in, it feels like Oasis has gotten it right. Each city they’re performing in has a pop-up shop open for about a week, with the days bookending the actual show. In the days before and after the show, throughout the streets of Chicago, you couldn’t walk 20 feet without seeing someone adorned in an article of clothing or carrying a piece of merch with the rectangular box Oasis logo emblazoned upon it. They were everywhere,
On the eve of the performance, Vanyaland bumped into a teen who had just come from the Chicago pop-up shop where he waited four hours in line. He’d traveled from Toronto, where a few nights ago he saw Oasis in what he called “The greatest show I’ve ever seen in my life.” Already clad in a baby blue soccer jersey that’s part of an Adidas collaboration with the band, as well as an Oasis bucket hat, he had a clear bag stocked with posters, keychains, shirts, and tour-themed vinyl.
The show itself threatened to be anticlimactic. After all, everyone has seen the videos of Oasis playing to the hometown faithful, with seas of bodies pogoing to the songs from the floor to the nosebleeds. Thousands of ticketless people were caught on film singing “Half the World Away” outside of Croke Park in Dublin. No matter how much merch they move or how many tickets they sell in North America, it’s always going to hit different there.
At Soldier Field, there were more bucket hats than seen on Spike Island 35 years ago at the infamous Stone Roses concert. As at The Cubby Bear the night before, all generations were repped, and then some. Parents brought their young kids, and more than a few shirts from past Oasis tours were spotted. It looked like half the crowd was cosplaying Liam Gallagher circa 1996.
Cage the Elephant, just a few months removed from playing Boston Calling, opened the night, with singer Matt Shultz well-aware of his band’s role as an appetizer; he said it was a dream to play the storied venue and graciously deferred to the headliners between the hits “Come a Little Closer” and “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked.” Guitarist Brad Shultz smashed his guitar at the close of the set to little response from the audience, who seemed content to wait out the oncoming display.
Following Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” blaring out of the PA, the lights went down, and the screens next to and behind the stage came alive as dialogue from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind warned, “This is not a drill.” The volume went up as a recording of “Fuckin’ in the Bushes,” the opening number to the 2000 Oasis LP Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, boomed in tandem with headlines from the UK tabloids last year about the reunion as well as the fan reactions across social media.
Then, there they were. Exactly 16 years to the day since he allegedly swung a guitar in the general direction of his brother’s head backstage in France, Liam was holding up one of Noel’s hands triumphantly – the other flashing the peace sign – in a nightly walkout that’s become iconic as any track in the Oasis catalog. The two did a quick embrace and retreated to their assigned stage locations, with Noel toward stage left and Liam planted firmly at the center.
“Oasis fans in the area!” the frontman bellowed after strutting up to his mic stand, resplendent in sunglasses and olive-green parka. “Chicago fans in the area!”
It was electric. Biblical. Spiritual. Mega. Everyone was mad fer it.
The ensuing 23-song set, which pulled 14 tracks from the first two Oasis albums – Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? – and five from the b-sides collection, The Masterplan, began with an obvious opener in “Hello,” and hit on just about anything a fan from then and now could want. “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova” for the TikTok sect, “Supersonic” and “Live Forever” for the longtime fans, and “Slide Away,” “The Masterplan,” and “Whatever” for the hardcore.
Content to hang in the background were longtime Oasis members Gem Archer on guitar and Andy Bell on bass, the latter on vacation from his main gig as lead guitarist for shoegaze pioneers Ride. Some of the biggest cheers of the night were reserved for guitarist Paul Arthurs, better known as Bonehead, an original member returning after 26 years. Journeyman drummer Joey Waronker leads a cast of backing musicians who rounded out the proceedings on keyboards and brass.
Neither brother is known for their stage banter, with Liam’s schtick historically ignoring the audience, but the pair are also bad at hiding emotion. Noel appeared downright pensive at points while Liam proudly soaked it all in, like during “Acquiesce,” where he stood statuesque for what seemed like an eternity, staring out at the audience from the lip of the stage.
“Seriously, we know you think we don’t like ya, but we fucking love ya,” Liam said before “Stand by Me,” drawing huge cheers from the crowd. “We’ve always loved ya.”
Trite as it might sound, Oasis is loved right back these days. And it’s not because of the Britpop battles that captivated the general public in the UK, nor the feuding between the Gallaghers, or even the nostalgia of it all. There’s just the songs, the anthems, the ones that fill the stadium air like they were made for it. Finally, they’re getting fair play in the right setting.
“Acquiesce,” “Roll with It,” “Cigarettes & Alcohol,” “Morning Glory,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” – all these songs are made to be shouted along to in massive venues like Soldier Field, New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium – where Oasis set up shop for the past two nights – and the Rose Bowl in Southern California, on the docket this upcoming weekend for a pair of dates, ending the brief U.S. run. Even the quieter numbers that spotlight Noel at the microphone, like “Half the World Away” and “Little by Little,” translate fantastically with 60,000 and change on backing vocals.
And what’s not hyperbole is that this is the most focused, the best sounding, and a much more enjoyable Oasis show to watch than wondering if Liam might walk off or some other calamity might arise. The spectacle is, as it should be, the music.
No matter what comes next, with a return to Knebworth rumored along with more dates in North America, Oasis has done it right this time around. It remains to be seen if they can truly conquer the States, because making it in three cities so far doesn’t quite cut it – although it’s damn close. But all these years later, a strong foundation has been laid, and it feels like the band is finally on the right path.
“This is fun,” SuperSonic’s Shepherd said. “This is so much fun. So, we’re just going to ride the wave and ride it out, and we’ll decide what we’re going to do from here on in when it happens.”
Let’s hope Oasis feels the same.