MUSIC
Oasis
Accor Stadium, November 7
Reviewed by George Palathingal
★★★★★
You really had to be there.
Look, it probably didn’t hurt if you were English and old enough to have first encountered Oasis there in the mid-’90s. But the most likely reason the Manchester rock titans’ 2025 tour has been such a seismic cultural phenomenon everywhere is that, for the first time in nearly 30 years, it serves up the show every fan has long hoped for.
Oasis’ Liam and Noel Gallagher arriving on stage in Sydney hand-in-raised-hand.Credit: Steven Siewert
(Yes, since more than a decade before their ignominious implosion in 2009. Has ever a band of such repute gone out with both a whimper – albums and tours of diminishing returns – and a bang: Noel Gallagher’s dramatic, final walkout after his latest fight with little brother Liam?)
Now, most importantly, the Gallaghers have done the once-unthinkable and kissed and made up – they triumphantly arrived on stage hand-in-raised-hand – and they’ve brought a near-perfect set with them.
It’s almost exclusively culled from that extraordinary period between 1994 and 1996 when Noel was effortlessly knocking out Oasis B-sides as spectacular as their epic singles, and we get plenty of these and more.
Liam Gallagher, all surly swagger with his zipped-up raincoat and tambourine.Credit: Steven Siewert
Noel Gallagher played guitar and sung with the casual cool of someone who knows the power of his tunes.Credit: Steven Siewert
Liam, all surly swagger with his zipped-up raincoat and tambourine, sings most of them and has, thankfully, been looking after his voice. He talks a lot of bollocks between songs, but that’s par for the course. Who cares anyway when they range from the irresistible riot of Cigarettes and Alcohol (which comes with the witty warning “Rock’n’roll may seriously damage your health”) to an achingly pretty Whatever or the blissful catharsis of Rock’n’Roll Star.
