An Oasis reunion tour? Bring on Champagne Supernova and the drama

SINGAPORE – Even if you know nothing about British rock band Oasis, you will know that Noel and Liam Gallagher, the brothers at the core, wrote and sang Wonderwall – and cannot stand each other.

The pair broke up in 2009 after years of sniping, mid-show walkouts and at least one cricket bat to the head.

They have just announced that Oasis

will reunite and tour in 2025.

Of course, it’s all a naked cash grab, but then so is every job on Earth. Weirdly, we have issues with greedy musicians but are fine with football or tennis players getting fat contracts. Our values are a bit off, wouldn’t you say?

But a couple of things about the tour stand out. First, Oasis are touring only the United Kingdom and Ireland so far, despite being huge in Asia and the Americas. Second, they aren’t the first people from a shattered band to tour as a unit – these days, logistics are sophisticated enough to handle the most fragile piece of band equipment, the ego.

Oasis are a stadium act. Their heyday was during the 1990s to mid-2000s, so their fans are in their prime earning years. And with streaming and download royalties nowhere near what acts used to earn from CD and cassette tape sales, the Gallaghers have to choose between pride and selling the yacht.

It helps that the music industry is getting savvier about mental health. In 2004, with the release of the documentary Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster, the American heavy metal group quite famously went public with the fact that they saw a therapist to save their friendships.

Oasis, being the lads that they are, will probably never talk about it, but their lawyers, insurance agents and managers will likely be asking them to take along a therapist. The cost involved in a mid-tour collapse makes mental wellness a non-negotiable option.

These factors put together mean that the second the tickets go on sale, men in their 40s from Seattle to Singapore will be buying tickets and booking flights to Cardiff, Manchester and every other city on the tour.

Already, pundits are predicting an influx of millions into the cities hosting the shows – given the age of the fans, it’s likely that the main beneficiaries might be doctors taking care of Gen X throats burnt out from over-enthusiastic singalongs of Don’t Look Back In Anger. From what I know about the song, it’s the closest thing to a football chant that non-football fans will ever experience.

Just as Asian Swifties were expected to fly to Singapore, bands like Oasis now view travelling as the fans’ job, not theirs. In 2024, big acts take up a mini-residency in stadiums.

What’s more impressive is that, unlike Swift, Oasis are a nostalgia act. While they are still hugely popular, their last studio album, Dig Out Your Soul, was released in 2008.

They can pack a two-hour show with hits, no filler.

That is if they can handle all 2025’s 14 gigs without drama. Already, pundits are predicting that a tour-ending spat will break out before the start of the actual tour, or that mid-show, words will be exchanged and once more, one brother will perform a spontaneous percussion solo on his brother’s face.

These naysayers are missing the point, and the point is that Oasis are a lad band. In Singapore, our experience with lad culture is minimal and confined largely to the occasional intoxicated Brit arrested around Clarke Quay for being rough with taxi drivers. In our minds, his behaviour is shocking, but in his mind, it’s Tuesday in Manchester.

Oasis came out of the UK as part of the lad wave that included FHM magazine and Britpop acts like The Stone Roses and Blur.

If one looks at the history of Gallager-on-Gallagher violence, it’s surprising that they broke up in 2009 because they had been butting heads – on at least one occasion, in a literal sense – for years. The fact that they stuck together for so long means they are more resilient than people give them credit for.

With lads, and especially between siblings, insults and the occasional bonk on the head with a tambourine aren’t acts of violence. For them, it’s almost a love language.