“Can’t be stronger than life itself”

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Welcome to

Music Week...

Relive Forever

“I’m proud of every minute I was in Oasis, even the bad times,” Liam Gallagher told Music Week back in 2017. “We shouldn’t have split up, we still should be together today.” That millions around the world had agreed with him for years mattered not. For a long, long time, rumours of a grand Oasis reunion were so persistent – and so persistently dismissed – that you felt maybe it just wasn’t going to happen. And then it did. It didn’t matter where in the world you were, or how loud your surroundings, the sound of millions of parkas being zipped up en masse drowned out everything else as news of Oasis’ reunion tour broke on August 27. Our calendars may have said we were in 2024, but suddenly it felt like 1994 all over again. What has followed has been remarkable, from the outpouring of joy to the endless think pieces dissecting the reasons for the reunion, whether it will spawn new music, the economics of the tour, the ethics of dynamic ticket pricing, the line-up and the surge in sales and streams. And, of course, some naysayers arguing that [insert contradictory band name of choice here] were always way better anyway. As predicted, the tour sold out instantly. For those operating multiple laptops and desktops during the on-sale, August 31 was either the best day of your life or the worst. One thing I followed with particular interest was the battle of the fandoms that followed on social media. And not between Oasis followers and, say, the Blur Brigade. TikTok and X were soon ablaze with hardcore fans urging all newer or curious Oasis converts to steer clear of buying tickets. This moment was for the old school fans, they insisted. If you weren’t mad fer it between 1994 and 2009, and if you didn’t have your original Knebworth ticket encased in bulletproof glass, then basically you had no right to be there. What these elevated levels of FOMO and gatekeeping drew attention to was the fact that there are a lot of people out there for whom Oasis is not some Stella Artoisspeckled memory from yesteryear, but rather an exciting new proposition. Yes, this tour was always going to be, as Liam Gallagher would say, BIBLICAL. But biblical for who? What’s clear is that – even compared with a host of massive reunions of recent years – there is more than mere nostalgia at play, more than just ‘I grew up with my mum and dad playing them!’, and more than the so-called “Wonderwall warriors”. How and why did a group who’ve been gone for 15 years bring Gen Z on board so easily? And what are the transferable lessons from this? Well, for all the squabbling over the years, the way Oasis have tended to their legacy during their hiatus has been remarkably consistent, from Liam and Noel Gallagher singing their songs in solo shows to a slew of reissues, a documentary and much more. They are standing on the shoulders not of giants, but 15 years of curated legacy-building. Given that a lot of bands – brilliant bands even – often return and play to the same crowds they used to, the moves Oasis have made during their hiatus should be studied. Right, now who can get R.E.M. on the phone? 2025 is calling...

George Garner, Editor-In-Chief

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