FEATURE:
Acquiesce
IN THIS PHOTO: Oasis playing at Knebworth House in August 1996
Will an Oasis Reunion Finally Happen in 2021?!
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EVERY year we seem to get these rumours…
PHOTO CREDIT: Michel Linssen/Redferns
and possibility that Oasis might reform. I know there are some that feel it is best the northern band are best left in the 1990s but, since their split in 2009, people have been wondering. The reason I bring up a plea for a truce between brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher is a recent storey that appeared in the music press. As NME reported, there are efforts from Liam Gallagher to get the band back together again:
“Liam Gallagher has called for an Oasis reunion in a New Year message to brother and former bandmate Noel.
The Brit pop giants famously split in 2009 when ongoing tensions between Liam and Noel reached their climax during a festival show in Paris.
Since then, Liam has expressed his desire for the band to reunite on several occasions, including in March last year when he asked Noel if he would consider getting the band back together for a one-off charity gig once the coronavirus crisis ends.
Liam told NME during his Big Read interview in February last year that an Oasis reunion is “gonna happen”.
“Believe you me – it’s gonna happen very fucking soon because he’s greedy and he loves money and he knows that it’s got to happen soon or it won’t happen,” he said, referring to a potential big payday for he and his brother.
Extending an olive branch to Noel once again, Liam last night (December 31) admitted that he loves his brother “long time” and tweeted that “2021 is our year”, teasing that this year could be the year that Oasis reform.
In 2019, Foo Fighters suggested to the crowd during their Reading Festival performance that they should start a petition to get Oasis back together.
The idea came after it was pointed out that Foos drummer Taylor Hawkins had stuck a photograph of Liam and Noel Gallagher to his kick drum.
“One of these days we’ll get Oasis back. One of these days,” Hawkins told the Reading crowd, after Dave Grohl took over on the drums for a rendition of Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’.
“We’re trying,” Grohl claimed”.
I think that their heyday was in the 1990s, but the band put out some pretty great songs up until their final album, Dig Out Your Soul, in 2008. I was never lucky enough to see Oasis play live, but I can only imagine how magic it would have been to see them take to the stage! With the charisma and swagger of Liam Gallagher, the songwriting chops of Noel Gallagher, and Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan, and Tony McCarroll (the classic early line-up; Gem Archer, Andy Bell, and Zak Starkey joined the Gallaghers on the final album) together, I think many people will go mad for it! Whether it is a one-off gig to fundraise for the NHS or a celebration when we get out the other side, Oasis getting back together (however briefly) would be immense!
One of the band’s finest moments came when they took to Knebworth in 1996 and played to 250,000 people over two nights. I think they should come back there – I have written about this before – and play this summer/autumn gig when we are through the worst. I know that the bickering and missile-throwing between the Gallaghers is legendary, but I feel a truce for a great cause would be justified. I am not sure whether that would motivate Oasis to record more music together but, rather than the fans expecting that much, a gig/series of gigs would be great! Maybe they could hold a gig on 29th August – twenty-seven years to the day since their debut, Definitely Maybe, arrived. Since they played Knebworth on 10th and 11th August, 1996, a twenty-fifth anniversary return would be stunning! Just imagine the throngs and hordes who would be up for a celebration at a spot where history was made! I know Liam Gallagher is well up for a reunion; I reckon Bonehead would be pretty eager too (he actually felt Oasis should have split after the Knebworth gigs - when they were at a peak and riding on that wave). I think the main sticking point would be getting Noel into the fold but, as Oasis’ storming gig at Knebworth is twenty-five this year, surely a set of the band’s greatest hits could be a one-off that would not cause him too much chagrin. Everyone would have their dream Oasis set but, to me, I would love to see them combine cuts from albums right through their career. Coming out onto stage with Supersonic (their debut single) and maybe ending with Live Forever (both from Definitely Maybe)? It is tantalising to imagine what we could witness!
As seen in the official event guide for @oasis at Knebworth '96. Were you there? Whereabouts? Use #Knebworth6Music pic.twitter.com/sR3T1Dn1Jk
— BBC Radio 6 Music (@BBC6Music) August 9, 2016
I want to quote some facts from the BBC article of 2016 - they looked back on the Oasis Knebworth gigs after twenty years.
“More than four per cent of the population applied for tickets to see Oasis at Knebworth, the largest ever demand for concert tickets in British history. A whopping 250,000 people got to see the band over two nights - another record - but incredibly, Oasis could have sold out another 18 Knebworth shows.
This figure has proved impossible to verify, but eye-witness reports certainly paint a picture of unrivalled backstage excess. According to Roy Wilkinson, writing for The Quietus, "The backstage bounty at Oasis's 1996 shows at Knebworth was astonishing. An immense marquee was lined with bars, all fully stocked with any drink you could imagine. A barbecue sizzled eternal. To anyone with a pass it was all free, all day... There were also free ice creams and lollies, plus portraitists and magicians permanently on call. Professional entertainers wandered the marquee offering tricks and caricature sketches."
Not only was a stage custom-built for the event but 11 speaker towers were erected at increasing distances from the stage in order that those further back could feel the full force of Noel's crushing power chords and Liam's throaty Mancunian roar. As soundman Rick Pope revealed to Sound On Sound: "Liam wanted his vocal blisteringly loud." It meant the microphones were so powerful that "someone would get within 10 feet of a microphone and you could hear their breath". The audio for the concert was handled by a company called Britannia Row, whose first ever commission was Pink Floyd at Knebworth in 1975.
As the old(ish) saying goes, if you can remember Britpop, you weren't there. And Noel's memory of those halcyon days is certainly patchy. "Genuinely, now, if I close my eyes, I can’t remember walking on stage at Knebworth," he told Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs. "I know it took place because there were lots of people there”.
Hopefully, by August, things are going to be better and we will be able to hold a huge live event. Many festivals are wondering whether they are going to be able to come back in June and, whilst that is on a knife-edge, I think a late-August gig would not be far-fetched and impossible. Not only would us ‘90s kids who grew up on Oasis undertake a pilgrimage to Knebworth to see the boys jam out the classics in the sun (hopefully the weather would be okay!); many others could connect with Oasis’ music if they are unfamiliar with it. This is all pie in the sky at the moment because, with COVID-19 raging and Noel Gallagher less open to a reunion than other members of the band, it will take a lot of negotiation and fingers being crossed to realise a dream that so many have – even if the lads get together just for one night. The Gallaghers have released their own solo albums since Oasis called it a day, so they are both match-fit and ready to kick it. Maybe there should be this campaign from the fans to (gently) persuade Noel Gallagher and the guys to hold a gig to raise funds for the NHS at a site that they ruled almost twenty-five years ago. We are all looking forward to the summer and the hope we can join together for something approaching normality! I hope that we do get good news and that Noel Gallagher can acquiesce and make a long-desired Oasis reunion a…
SUMMER reality!