Oasis reunion tour: Will they get along? Definitely Maybe!

Ah, what a wonderful soap opera this is! Two brothers are butting heads and screaming at each other. They use Twitter as a blast, throwing fruit at each other, and, in the sight of their brothers' faces, deciphering the English lexicon from A to Zip Your Lip. And we're (almost) there live. An epic fight like Cain and Abel, William and Harry, Kim and Kourtney Kardashian. Only more thunderous, more scratchy, more powerful. Curtain up on the story of Noel and Liam Gallagher.

Better known as Oasis.

The two brothers from a social housing estate in Manchester have written one of those rags-to-riches stories. They grew up in poverty in northern England, suffered under an alcoholic father, rose to global fame through music, lost their temper, argued, separated. And now, drum roll, reunited.

Anyone who wanted tickets for the tour needed not only money but also patience.

Source: ---/Ticketmaster.Co.Uk/PA Media/

On Friday, something will happen that the pessimistic Oasis fans no longer dared to hope for, and, to be honest, the optimistic ones too: Oasis will embark on a reunion tour, playing concerts together again, and wanting to forget the past. Or, to put it in the words of the famous song "Wonderwall": Today It's Gonna Be The Day.

Let's turn back the clock about ten months. On August 25, 2024, the final notes of Liam Gallagher's performance at a festival in Reading are just beginning to ring out. Strange messages flash across the screen. The fans are furious. Is that supposed? That? Does that mean? Does that mean that a reunion of the two irreconcilable brother blocs, essentially East Oasis and West Oasis, is imminent?

Yes, that's what it should say. Two days after the cryptic ten-second message on the monitor, a press release follows: "The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised." If you like, here it is with subtitles: "The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The long wait is over. Come see! It will not be televised."

Weapons. Stars. Liam and Noel are reaching for the top of the vocabulary drawer. But they always have. "This is history, right here, right now." These phrases can be heard on stage in August 1996. At that time, the Britpop band Oasis was playing in Knebworth, England, and 250,000 people – many men, often in tracksuit clothes and with the then-typical, tousled helmet hairstyles – were listening. History, the Gallaghers won't do it any less.

But admittedly, this performance by the Gallagher brothers Noel and Liam, along with their bandmates, was the largest open-air concert England had ever seen. 7,000 people were reportedly in attendance, including stars of the era such as models Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall, fellow Britpop star Jarvis Cocker, and football stars Gareth Southgate and Stuart Pearce – those older than me will remember these celebrities.

Let's stay in England in the 1990s for a moment. Since taking office in 1979, Margaret Thatcher had elevated neoliberalism to state doctrine and closely linked the concept of happiness with the concept of personal responsibility. "There is no such thing as society," was one of her famous quotes. Thatcher governed from 1979 to 1990, followed by her successor, John Major, also a Tory Party member, for another seven years.

In the mid-nineties, England simply wanted to open the window. Through that very open window, a young, electric guitar-playing politician named Tony Blair smiled in. In 1996, England had brought home the football at the European Football Championship, but not the trophy. Penalty shootout, need we say more?

Former hopeful: former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. here in February 2017.

Source: imago/ZUMA Press

Despite the sporting defeat, the times were largely open and optimistic. The appropriate soundtrack to this era was provided by young bands who collectively formed the Britpop label. Blur, led by Damon Albarn, reached number one in the English charts in 1994 with their album "Parklife." Pulp, featuring Jarvis Cocker, followed with "Different Class" in 1995.

And Oasis? They also topped the charts in 1994 with their album "Definitely Maybe" (definitely perhaps the most beautiful title for all of the indecisive people on earth). "In my mind my dreams are real / Now you're concerned about the way I feel / Tonight, I'm a rock-'n'-roll-star," goes the album's opener. Unlike the upper-class snobs of Blur, as Oasis fans like to call them – the two bands fought each other like Nintendo and Sega to stay in time – the Gallaghers' road was rocky. They had dreamed of rising through music, and in their heads the dream was reality, and by the mid-nineties, outside their heads too.

The second album, "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?", followed in September 1995, featuring the mega-hits "Wonderwall" and "Don't Look Back in Anger." Does anyone aged 40 to 55 today remember a party from that era without these two songs? For those of you, here's a round of "Champagne Supernova."

Let's stay with the 1990s for a bit. It was the era of (in the broadest sense) renewed social democracy. Tony Blair had embraced the "Third Way" of pragmatic, ideology-free politics. Gerhard Schröder took over the chancellorship from Helmut Kohl in 1998 and, with a loud "Basta" and "Comrade of the Bosses" attitude, led his party to a new social and labor market policy, evoking Hartz IV. And Bill Clinton was in power in the USA. All of them politicians liked to see themselves as assertive, dominant men. As Joschka Fischer put it in the "tageszeitung" in 2005: "I was one of the last rock 'n' rollers in German politics."

All of these men stood for a new beginning and a new politics. And Oasis was lucky: with their optimism and their songs, which, at least in Europe, were interpreted as evocative of a spirit of optimism, the musicians were in the right place at the right time. For the men and women among their fans, who also came from humble backgrounds, they offered a sense of identification and promised that upward mobility was possible. Even though Oasis rarely Britpopped anything like social criticism or even class struggle into the microphone, they did sing lines like: "Some might say they don't believe in heaven / Go tell it to the man who lives in hell."

"Their effervescent nature and the energy in their songs are captivating," says Stephan Rehm Rozanes, editor-in-chief of "Musikexpress," in an interview. "Oasis' music always stood for a better future." Our present could certainly use that, too. Therefore, Rehm Rozanes is certain: "Oasis' upcoming concerts will overshadow everything that has come before."

From the end of the 1990s onwards, the band's decline continued. Liam increasingly showed up drunk at concerts or even skipped out altogether. The sibling feud grew increasingly complicated, and the third album, "Be Here Now," massively disappointed fans. And then there was the handshake between Noel Gallagher and Tony Blair at a party in Number 10 Downing Street. That went too far. Like Icarus to the sun, Gallagher had gotten too close to the government. Oasis' split in 2009 after another escalating sibling feud was understandable.

Since then, much water has flowed down the rivers of northern England. Unlike the mid-1990s, when liberal democracy seemed to prevail as the only conceivable form of government after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the English, Germans, French, and Americans today live in a time of uncertainty, crises, and wars. Many like to look back on their own youth and rave about the good old days. Even if this rearview mirror view also includes a fair amount of idealization. Don't look back in anger.

Many people in Great Britain are currently reeling from Brexit, says Stephan Rehm Rozanes. An increasingly complex world is exhausting society, even on Europe's largest island. Therefore, a revival that reminds people of supposedly simpler times is sure to be a huge success. "It will be a real ecstasy," says the expert. But why? Why this veneration of the band as a national treasure of the United Kingdom?

For Rehm Rozanes, who will publish his book "Oasis" with Reclam Verlag in July, the many conflicts among the Gallagher brothers are certainly no obstacle to loving the band today. "A band that functions like a telenovela is easier to consume than the current complex world situation." The conflict between the brothers, he argues, actually helps fans identify with the band: "Anyone who has siblings can relate to these disputes."

Another secret of Oasis is that they also inspire generations who didn't grow up in the 1990s surrounded by "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," Tamagotchis, and Discmans. 48-year-old Louise Davies is impressed by the large number of young Oasis fans. "They celebrate the music with the same passion I did when I was their age. I get messages from people almost every day on social media—among them, there are always 18- or 19-year-olds who can hardly wait for the upcoming concerts." A fan since 1994, the Welshwoman believes Oasis is now bigger than ever.

Traveling separately for a long time: Liam (left) and Noel Gallagher.

Source: Uncredited/AP/dpa

This also fits in with the ongoing 90s revival that continues to shape music and fashion. Whether techno beats, Adidas sneakers, or crop tops: young people today are filming themselves for TikTok in the video aesthetic of the 90s. Listening to bands like Oasis seems only logical in this parade of retro feelings.

Even though Britpop's heyday was 30 years ago, they're not a bad fit for our present. In the mid-nineties, Oasis also represented a renationalization of music. Liam Gallagher had the Union Jack – the British national flag – spray-painted on his electric guitar. Smiths singer Morrissey faced considerable criticism for a similar move in 1992. It was probably no coincidence that the defining phrase "Cool Britannia," which hovered like a logo over the Britpop era, rhymed with England's unofficial national anthem, "Rule Britannia."

A few years ago, the Guardian even took up the idea of ​​whether Britpop was partly to blame for Brexit. The newspaper didn't find this to be the case. But the paper's "official chronicler of Britpop," John Harris, did ask: "If people started blithely playing around with flags in 1995 and endlessly conjuring up a bygone Britain that probably never existed, where did that lead?"

In the end, it was politicians like Boris Johnson who steered the country out of Europe. The impact of Oasis, whose members briefly saw themselves as the biggest band in the world in the mid-1990s—and thus elevate themselves above the Beatles, whom they idolized and frequently quoted in their lyrics—should not be underestimated. Today, however, they are little more than successful riders on the nostalgia wave.

They'll play old songs on their tour and, who knows, maybe even new ones, despite other announcements. They'll ignore the laments about the far too expensive tickets (up to several thousand euros per ticket) and revel in the estimated earnings of up to 475 million euros. They'll attract many male, raucous, testosterone-fueled fans – Edinburgh City Council has already warned of "rowdy middle-aged men" ahead of the August shows in the capital. Spoiler alert, fellow Scots: They're coming.

The most important thing for all fans, however, will be that the two brothers don't argue during the months-long tour. It wouldn't surprise anyone if another bout of squabble were to fly, like the one that happened on the night of their split in August 2009 in the band's dressing room in Paris. That would be another chapter in this wonderful musical soap opera. And we'd be there live.