How Oasis Found a New Kind of Supernova

Summer's last breath already blew when Oasis held court over MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. On a cool Labor Day Sunday, beneath an ashen night sky painted with smog—courtesy of the apocalyptic refineries that haunt the New Jersey Turnpike—Manchester's greatest musical export shook the home for football of a different kind than these blokes in their fifties are used to. Projected on jumbo vertical screens, brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher towered over the pit like the overlords in Apple's 1984 Super Bowl ad to become New York giants of their own.

For the first time since their disbandment in 2009, an older, wiser, and visibly more professional Oasis played the East Coast metropolitan area for tens of thousands eager to be told brighter days are still ahead. Given the history of interpersonal turmoil as synonymous with the band as their rock-star hijinks and lyrics of youthful vigor and vulnerabilities, perhaps Oasis needed that reminder once, too.

Wailing with swagger through hits like "Hello," "Morning Glory," "Supersonic," and "Live Forever" (movingly dedicated by Liam to "the kiddies from Minneapolis"), the Britpop legends seemed at ease. At long last, they're comfortable in their age and experience, and confident knowing that this ocean of aged millennials and Gen Z-ers are with them every step of the way. And they will until it's time for all this to end, again. Just hopefully not soon enough.

Liam Gallagher, along with the rest of Oasis, drew thousands to MetLife Stadium on August 31 as part of the American leg of their Live ’25 reunion tour.

Noel Gallagher (pictured) and brother Liam split frontman duties, with Noel performing songs like "Talk Tonight" and "Little By Little."

The Garden State was the second stop of the American leg of Oasis Live '25, a hot-ticket show since the band reunited after Noel and Liam squashed whatever beef split them for fifteen years. There may yet be shouting matches in the green room, with words like "wanker" spat between them under a mural of Eli Manning. Who knows? But in front of all these people in New Jersey, the siblings kept things copacetic, if also distant. With one or two hugs and minimal contact between them, they seemed all business and not terribly personal. (Though other crowds have witnessed straight-up butt grabs.)

The simplicity of the tour's name speaks to the no-nonsense, no-frills show you'd expect—and want—from a true rock 'n' roll band like Oasis. This is affirmed by Liam's practical outfit of a Gorpcore parka and shades, a look he's also sported on his solo tours. Endearing frankness by Liam added to the straightforwardness of their plans for the night, with offers of life lessons ("Don’t listen to all the other knobheads going, 'We don't like you' and all that nonsense") and punches of wit ("New York, New Jersey, wherever the fuck we are") between tracks. But the spotlight still ultimately landed on the music: the melodic guitars and Liam's nasal vocals that got the UK to leave dance halls and get back to gig shows in the aftermath of Thatcher. In the turbulence of Trump 2.0, Oasis are as loud as ever, the whole shebang dialed up like when teens first popped Definitely Maybe into CD boomboxes.

Any notions Oasis would break up again before they left Cardiff, the first stop on the tour, swept away long ago. The critically-acclaimed show has drawn praise from those who caught them in Wales, London, and Chicago. But at the risk of sounding like an East Coast elitist: This is New Jersey New York, baby. If you can make it here, etc. And in a region whose rock heritage is largely shaped by the working-class romanticism of Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, and the moxy of garage punks like Ramones, Oasis won over the tens of thousands of New Jerseyans (and New Yorkers, who outnumbered the locals) with their own brand of strife and sentimentality wrapped up in immortal hooks.

New Jersey natives and their New York neighbors congregated in their best Adidas track wear and bucket hats for the first of two Oasis shows at MetLife Stadium, which marked the end of summer for many over Labor Day weekend.

After starting out as a cover band only to explode like a supernova before fizzling out amid drugs and bitterness, Oasis now live up to their name as one of the last rock groups of their era to legitimately claim they're still touring, and selling out stadiums on a level reserved for a higher echelon of musical stardom. Oasis have never been industry underdogs. But to be a rock group playing packed stadiums in 2025 is a feat that practically defies physics.

Not that they're dwelling in a more hallowed past. For a band whose best pieces can score a '90s period movie, Oasis are reluctant to play like guys in their twenties. They play like the men they are now, with a refinement and skillfulness that only decades can afford. Only God and the Gallaghers themselves know if new music is on the table, but for the rest of us, there's an energy that is compelling Oasis fandom to carry on forward and not dwell in the past. In other words: Don't look back, at least not in anger.

Aside from an end-of-show fireworks display that lasted several minutes, Oasis Live ’25 is a show that puts a premium on music over showmanship. Not that Oasis doesn’t put on a hell of a show.

Though the majority of the setlist was made up of material from their seminal first two albums—1994's Definitely Maybe and 1995's (What's the Story) Morning Glory?—Oasis in 2025 perform more like sages reciting first-hand wisdom than aggrieved drunks rambling at the pub. Sandwiched between anthems like "Acquiesce" and "Roll With It," the more tender tracks of the Oasis canon, like "Talk Tonight" and "Half the World Away" illuminated how much the band has grown up as people. No longer are Oasis the scourge of hotel rooms and defilers of groupies. In the 2016 documentary Oasis: Supersonic, Noel talks of the band's budding reputation as the "bad boys of rock 'n roll." Liam adds: "If you haven't got that kind of behavior, and you've just got great tunes, then you're pretty fucking boring, as far as I'm concerned." Fast forward to 2025, where—in the middle of the Jersey swamplands at 10 o'clock—Liam openly wishes he could go to bed. As much fun as MetLife was having, the sentiment was shared. "My body feels young, but my mind is very old" means something else coming from a 58-year-old Noel.

I don't know if absence really makes the heart grow fonder, but after fifteen-plus years of separation and tireless speculation over the what-ifs and could-bes, Oasis' reunion in 2025 is a reality. And things have never been clearer: Oasis are, and always have been, among the greatest rock bands ever to play music. There is no secret sauce or method to their madness. Just a lethal combination of egotistic, wildly talented brothers who couldn't stand each other anywhere but the stage. Oasis may be oceans away from where they started. But on a stage in New Jersey, and wherever else they play next, they are right at home.