Tom Dunne: Oasis really will make grown men cry 

No one seems to have quite predicted how emotional it would be... you have lived 30 years of your life since you first fell in love with this band, this music, these songs

Noel Gallagher and Liam Gallagher of Oasis.

Grown men are going to cry. It’s not something you see a lot of, particularly with this type of man, but it’s coming. It’s been documented. The Oasis
reunion is going to bring ‘the feels’. When they hit Talk Tonight it’s going to make The Shawshank Redemption look like a Disney movie.

The Shawshank Redemption is generally seen as a famously emotional movie for men. A man is falsely imprisoned. But he doesn’t buckle. He endures in what is a profound story about friendship, hope, injustice and perseverance. He maintains dignity in the face of crushing adversity... just like every Oasis fan I know.

Those fans who have endured the break-ups, the fights, the long string of crushingly disappointing albums, the rumoured reunions know this Shawshank experience only too well. These years have not been easy. Holding on to hope in silence can be the most courageous act of all.

Maybe the problem was that the good times were just too good. When Oasis arrived with simple uplifting messages, telling you to Roll with It, enjoy a Champagne Supernova and some Cigarettes and Alcohol it wasn’t a moment too soon. We loved Nirvana, but God were we ready to lighten up.

A man in a Parka jacket telling you to “have a bevy and cheer up” was manna from heaven. And you can say what you want about Britpop, but what was not to like with albums every month from Blur, Pulp, Radiohead, and their ilk?

It would be fair to say our friends in the UK had a moment. The Premier League started, Tracy Emin was about, lads’ mags were on the go, Fever Pitch was in cinemas. Britain seemed to be relieving the Carnaby Street era of The Kinks and the Stones. Even Bowie got in on the Union Jack act.

Here we were on fire. It was peak Father Ted. The Divine Comedy ruled. Our comedians were colonising the clubs. London was suddenly a great place to be Irish. And Oasis, more than anyone sound tracked its every moment. Until they didn’t.

Global shot of the crowd attending the last show of the band Oasis in Heaton Park Manchester on Sunday the 20th of July, 2025.

For many, the Oasis retreat from the limelight coincided with their own embracing of the more serious things in life. There were careers, marriages, children. All good things and if teens later tried to shock us with teen behaviour they were barking up the wrong tree. We’d already rolled with it.

The issue of how men struggled in the real world became a topic. Not good expressing emotion was a common theme. Men talking ‘shoulder to shoulder’ was another. It was the beginning of the Men’s Sheds movement. We needed all the help we could get.

And then in a newsflash that seemed more unlikely than MUFC getting good again Oasis reformed. It got a bit unseemly — dynamic pricing and all that — but they were back and that was all that mattered.

At last we could say: “Taylor Swift fans, look on our bucket hats and despair.”

But this is where it gets surprising. No one seems to have quite predicted how emotional it would be. How emotional to go back to the cradle of those anthemic songs, to see Liam and Noel back together again, to see that world again in every face, every replica top, every repeated chorus.

Everyone I have talked to has said the same: “I didn’t expect the emotion.” Without giving too much away there will be a moment when you might be asked to put an arm around the person next to you. A moment when you and 60,000 people become just one big continuous mass.

And you might ask yourself ‘how did I get here?’ And you might tell yourself ‘My God! What have I done?’

What you’ve done is lived 30 years of your life since you first fell in love with this band, this music, these songs. That’s a chunk of life. And if you thought Half a World Away or Live Forever carried an emotional heft then, then wait till you feel it now, as you look into the eyes of the person next to you and think ‘this is AMAZING!’.

So far no one I’ve spoken to has regretted whatever it is they paid for the ticket. One of my friends said they’d sell a kidney to see them again. The fact that they have more or less declared for Ireland in the intervening years is just a bonus. Record beer sales at Wembley I believe.