6 August 2025

If you’re an OASIS hater, you’d better run and hide now (well, you can do
what everything you want to do, of course, but just don’t start moaning
about this historic comeback).

Last Sunday I was in London (with my beloved wife), to see one of their
Wembley reunion concerts. This was my 28th Oasis gig. I guess you can
call me a fan.

The first one was in August 1994, in a small club in London. They only had
released 2 singles at that point, Shakermaker and Supersonic. Thank you
NME (legendary British music weekly, my bible for years) for introducing
me to the Manchester rock heroes.

Did I go crazy when the reunion was announced? Absolutely, but most of all
I was happy for those young(er) generation(s) who grew up with tons of rock
and pop music, the Gallagher bros included and got the chance now to see
them for the first time, well at least the ones who were lucky to get a ticket.

Anyway, when I arrived in London in the morning, it was clear that OASIS were
in town. I saw fans with Oasis T-shirts, hats, trainings, at tube stations, on the
trains, in shops, in restaurants, snack places, in toilettes, out in the streets, in
the parks, and of course hundreds and hundreds in and outside pubs.

In one of them, I experienced the loudest Oasis fans meeting ever, while
I was enjoying fish and chips with a delicious pint of Guinness (what else?)

This was my umpteenth time in London since I was 18.
A pretty unique, overwhelming, and utterly fun one.

The ‘Olympic’ road to Wembley

Fast-forward to Wembley Stadium where a remarkable force of policemen
and stewards (who were constantly asked to take photos of fans) welcomed
the masses.

On the Olympic Way, the glorious, only-pedestrians road that links Wembley Park tube station and Wembley Stadium, thousands and thousands were smiling, singing, chattering and watching the gigantic stadium at the end, on the hill, while many started buying merch at the many stands along the Olympic, and/or had their first non-alcohol drinks (yep, no alcohol outside the stadium).

Thanks to an absolutely flawless organization (unfortunately enough, a shocking
accident occurred the day before, on Saturday, when a man fell all the way from
the top upper tier, down to the ground, and died) it lasted hardly 20 minutes from
leaving the underground station to reach the grounds of the mega stadium.

Intro footage – thanks to MASA’s From The Venue

From there on, you entered Oasis world where three generations, from teenage kids with their parents to 70plus years old devotees who were around the first time, were about to be part of something truly special.

I heard people speaking Spanish, Dutch, German, French, Swedish (or was it Danish
or Norwegian?), Chinese (or was it Japanese?) and some languages I couldn’t make
sense of.

Soon, people start queuing for drinks, food, and at the toilets.

I arrived at the end of the set of first support act, Britpop oldtimers Cast.

After them, Richard Ashcroft (who casts no shadow, as we know, according to Noel) caused the first goosebumps chants of the night with pure pop gems like The Drugs Don’t Work, Lucky Man, Sonnet. And, as expected, Bittersweet Symphony went down a storm with 80,000 throats singing along, out loud. Sheer magic.

At 8.15pm the Led Zep-esque, near-instrumental siren-powered blast Fucking In The Bushes (opener from their 2000 album ‘Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants‘, used for years as intro by the band and afterward at Liam‘s solo gigs) and a tsunami of photos/news headers and other Liam/Noel related stuff from the past, on the giant screen, meant the start of IT.

Beer was flying all over the place. The avid audience
went supersonically ballistic in an eye blink. Glorious.

We got 20 songs (most of them the big ones from their first 3 albums (see setlist below),
20 bone-chilling moments, 20 timeless ‘O’ classics. I’m not going into detail, I’d rather want to share what I was already doing until now, my impressions.

For two hours every single soul was singing, screaming, yelling every
single word of every single song. Every tune was welcomed as a GOAL.
The whole concert actually felt like a once-in-a-lifetime series of hattricks.
Probably the greatest football game Wembley had ever seen. Breathtaking.

I saw a variety of surging emotions. People were smiling from left to right and
back, throwing fists in the air, waving their arms, putting their lungs into action
jumping up and down, and hugging each other, and some of them were crying,
obviously because memories linked to specific songs came up and stirred
their hearts and souls… again.

Everybody, just everybody, except for that one (honestly, I saw only one) hugely drunk
idiot who was caught quickly by security and was sent back to sender) was so down to earth, so tremendously social, helping each other out, patient for one another at queues, as all 80,000 spectators were elated to be part of this giant gathering of friends and family. No annoying egos in the house.

I don’t care if this sounds sugary, but John Lennon was right all along.
All You Need Is Love and Oasis were the catalysts (not only) last Sunday.

It was all about LIVE (AND LOVE) FOREVER!

I’m a vet when it comes to music (as a fanatic fan that is). I heard about a million songs/artists/bands (so far), I went to about a million (well, approximately, of course) concerts (so far), and this flabbergasting mass event and CELEBRATION OF LIFE atmosphere went straight to the top of my mind, and will stay their forever.

Thanks to our kids, who didn’t look back in anger for one second.

SETLIST

Hello
Acquiesce
Morning Glory
Some Might Say
Bring It On Down
Cigarettes & Alcohol
Fade Away
Supersonic
Roll With It
Talk Tonight
Half the World Away
Little by Little
D’You Know What I Mean?
Stand by Me
Cast No Shadow
Slide Away
Whatever
Live Forever
Rock ‘n’ Roll Star

Encore:

The Masterplan
Don’t Look Back in Anger
Wonderwall
Champagne Supernova

Big pyrotechnics to end a wonderwall evening

Masses

Oops

Back home

All photos by Turn Up The Volume