Séamas O'Reilly: Return of Oasis evokes memories of nineties music snobbery

Liam Gallagher (left) and his brother Noel Gallagher (right) at the Cardiff International Arena in 1997. Pic: Joanne Nelson/PA Wire

Tickets for Oasis’s huge reunion shows went on sale this morning, including two shows (so far) for Croke Park next August. 

It’s likely you’re too late to buy them by now, since the clamour for this reunion, even before it had been fully confirmed, was palpable in every corner of the internet where photos of fur-lined parkas can be found.

Occasionally, this tipped into unpleasant territory, as in the case of one fan pre-emptively incensed by the crush that was to come. 

“Imagine waiting 15 years for Oasis to reform” tweeted Billy Corcoran, “only to lose out on tickets to Chloe, 21 from Stockport who just wants to hear ‘Wonderwall’ live.”

This exercise in “inventing a girl to get annoyed with” did little to assuage the allegations of the Oasis hardcore being middle-aged, male, and petulant; stuffy gatekeepers soured by the departure of their youth. But such reactions were in the minority.

While some of the broadsheet write-ups were almost cringingly fawning, it’d take a heart of stone not to appreciate the joy fans expressed when the band’s Wikipedia entry was changed from “Oasis were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991” to “Oasis are an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991”.

Irish fans were even quick to point out that this won’t be the Gallagher brothers’ first time in Croke Park, posting pictures of young Noel turning out for Manchester GAA side Oisín’s for an exhibition match in 1983.

By the time you’re reading this, the tickets will have already sold out or the whole thing will have been cancelled by the two brothers who have definitely reformed for artistic reasons and not for a massive cash grab.

A light joke, there. Please forgive me. I’m happy that so many people are gladdened by this news, so I hope those same people can excuse the snark I’ve allotted for myself in the following few lines.

An advertisement in Dublin City Center for Oasis Live ahead of ticket sales for Concerts in Dublin in 2025. Photo: Sam Boal/Collins Photos

LARGE COATS INDOORS

I was 10 when Oasis blew up, exactly the right age to love them as much as all my peers, but they never appealed to me. 

At the time, I found their music incurious and regressive; dour, placeholder lyrics set to empty, stadium-ready riffs, delivered with a macho bluster that felt weaponised by posh British music industry types as the safe and acceptable face of Northern attitude.

I described it as a staid and boring expression of rock music at its most conservative and unthreatening, marinated in Cbeebies-brand rebelliousness — rebellion, in this case, amounting to little more than palling around with billionaires and prime ministers while giving the fingers to photographers and wearing large coats indoors.

I would, in short, have agreed with the late, great Neil Kulkarni, that theirs was “soupy, sexless, muscle-memory rock”.

Finding my feet as a music fan in the mid-90s, it seemed like there was a constant conveyor belt of groundbreaking artists who blew open my brain and ripped out my heart, so it was easy for me to cast Oasis as music for people who hadn’t gotten round to listening to very much music.

It was like the aural equivalent of the poems you get in birthday cards, or the art you used to find on the walls of web cafes. 

Even now, the news that they’re reforming fills me with about as much excitement as I feel when Man City’s corporate team announce they’re changing their official fire safety partner.

It seems I, too, have been soured by youth. As much as I see the effect of nostalgia at play in the millions of fans scrambling to see Oasis reform, I must admit that my own feelings about their music are quite obviously — and embarrassingly — coloured by my own childhood biases. 

I didn’t like their music, certainly, but performatively shitting on it made me feel like a brave and intelligent iconoclast, when I was just someone who had different tastes and a chip on his shoulder.

Liam Gallagher (left) and Noel Gallagher who have announced they will reunite for Oasis's long-awaited reunion with a worldwide tour in 2025, beginning in Cardiff.

ONE LESS PUNTER

In this period of the 90s, guitar music predominated in Derry. Every pub was crowded with Gallagher clones, and every young band attacked the mic with a Liam lean, dressed head to toe in smart casual as they belted out Oasis hits. 

This is how ‘Wonderwall’ became so ubiquitous that, 30 years later, it’s still used as shorthand for “grotesquely overplayed song”, even — as in the case of the horrified Oasis purist above — by the band’s most diehard fans.

The abstruse electronic music I preferred was hard to come by on the radio, and it’s this that made my 12-14-year-old self feel somewhat frustrated and, worse, superior. 

I was exactly the type to quibble over the definitions of jungle and drum n bass, or spell “Drexciya” out loud to bored friends. Or explain — for the hundredth time to people whose patience I abused — that Aphex Twin was just one guy.

I have a tendency, even now, to fall into the habit of responding to the music I hated as a child with anger and hauteur, when I would never think to react to today’s chart-toppers in the same way. 

I am perfectly capable of letting people enjoy things in my middle age, so I should reach back through the decades and attempt the same for the bugbears of my youth. 

And if I find Oasis’s ‘each-chord-begets-the-next’ melodies somewhat childish, I must concede they’re a good deal less childish than me carrying on a grudge I first founded in primary school, for very little reason, to impress precisely nobody.

Now that I’m a man, so sayeth scripture, I shall put away childish things. And so, this week, I made a point of sticking on Definitely, Maybe in the hope I could glean more from it in adulthood than I did as the pretentious child who first so took against them.

I hated it, still. I don’t get it, and I never will. But I’m finally happy it’s caused so much joy for everyone else this week, and wish them every luck getting a ticket.

At least I’ll be one less punter for them to compete with.