Oasis’s Manchester homecoming gig in was like a collective release | Canada Voices

In the buzzing anticipation before the main event, the woman beside me put her lips to my ear and shouted, “No linoleum?” I was puzzled, but then there had been plenty of pints slung about, and Sympathy for the Devil was playing at an ear-splitting level.

“For me, it’s always been Noel,” she went on, and I realized the question – “Noel or Liam?” – was a kind of Oasis fan personality test. Which Gallagher brother do you prefer: the apeish swagger of Liam, or the wry blue-collar philosophy of Noel.

There was no time to respond, however, because there they were, striding out onto the stage together, raised hand in raised hand, Noel looking fatigued, and Liam, in sunglasses and clutching a pair of maracas, trying hard not to let excitement crack his aloof façade. Yes, the rock ’n’ roll stars were back, crashing into the mashed chords of Hello.

This was Oasis’s sixth show of their Live in ’25 tour, and the fourth in Manchester. The grass of Heaton Park had been pounded into a sticky mud by four crowds of 80,000 people, each one a heaving sea of bucket hats, Adidas leisurewear, rain jackets and unibrows.

The path to such a supernova event is a meteor shower of facts, memory and observation. A rehash of the Gallagher sibling rivalry, a medley of oaths, insults and thrown fruit; speculation on what begat the reunion, not least of all rumours of a £100-million payoff for each of the front men; a scramble for pricey tickets, amidst endless digital queues and crashing websites.

And enterprise: Some estimates had the four Manchester concerts bringing £300-million to the local community. On Saturday, the pubs in the city were full to bursting, the hotels were booked out, and, for those whom the real deal eluded, the tribute bands Snoasis, Twoasis and Noasis (“the definitive Oasis tribute band”) all played various shows across town.

On the streets leading to Heaton Park, entrepreneurs were hawking bottles of water for a pound and hats for a fiver. In their streetwise tycoonery was the same urgency heard in Liam’s tilted-head, curled-lip delivery (he labelled his poise “stillism”), his pinched tone and phrasing giving Noel’s ruffian lyrics a sincerity that in another’s voice merely sounds sappy (you try singing “sun-she-ine,” or “imagin-eh-she-on,” with the poise Liam commands in Cigarettes and Alcohol; it’s impossible).

“I’ve been hearing lovely things about you,” Liam said of the crowd from the stage. “You’ve been behaving yourselves. Doing Manchester proud.” It says a lot that good behaviour can include flinging urine-filled cups into the masses (a local tendency) and setting off flares.

But in an age of high choreography and instrument-less groups, there is something almost quaint in this dirty spectacle of rock music: guitars and tambourines, with lyrics straight from a hard-up Britain of betting shops, disgusting food, pubs-as-church, vicious-yet-loving banter, elevated by the mantra that escape from all that is not only possible but joyous. There’s no nostalgic longing for the “good old days” here, but hymnals for improving one’s lot, love life, and spirit by any means necessary.

For that reason, and their irrepressible melodic lines, some songs – Don’t Look Back in Anger, Champagne Supernova, the dreaded Wonderwall – have fermented in the cultural soup for 30 years without losing any of their power. They may define 1990s Britpop, but they are also modern standards. Yet, the reunion is not the museum show one might expect. It is instead a living spectacle, like looking through a family photo album, with all its joys and miseries.

“Thanks for sticking with us,” Liam said near the end of the show, acknowledging that the band is a “nightmare.” It’s something you can only say to family, and only family would reply with adulation. The fact that, around me, people far younger than the songs were belting them out full force, was proof that neither the band nor its music is stuck in time.

The singing was like a collective release. Oasis was loud, but the crowd was louder, a chorus 80,000 strong singing over Liam with evangelical fervour. Grown men wept, and couples kissed, hugged and swayed together.

“Look at me now, you’re all in my hands tonight,” Liam sang out, the band thumping out Rock ‘n’ Roll Star. There are worse hands to be in; from Mumbai to Moscow, the world today has no shortage of tyrants. The best alternative to those bullies is a crowd of people who collect simply to sing; pleasure has its armies, too.

In places around the globe, the sounds of war drown out the sweet songs of hope and optimism. But not in Manchester, not tonight.