Oasis Makes It Through First Reunion Show Without Incident

Noel and Liam Gallagher managed to successfully make it through the first stop on their much-anticipated Oasis reunion tour without coming to blows, much to the relief of fans who have waited years for the day the brothers might perform together again.

Torn apart by a falling out between the Gallagher brothers in 2009, many fans worried Oasis would never reunite. It then came as an unexpected—yet very welcome—surprise when the band announced a reunion tour last year, which will see them travel across the U.K. and Ireland before heading to North America, Asia, Australia and South America.

The tour kicked off in Cardiff, Wales, on Friday, July 4, with a 23-song set of the band’s greatest hits, including a four-song encore that saw them close out the show with “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova.” They were supported by fellow Britpop legends, The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft, and Cast.

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Reviews of the show were positive, with Rolling Stone calling it the “cultural moment of the year—possibly the decade” and describing the band as sounding ”absolutely biblical.“

Oasis opened their long-awaited reunion tour at Cardiff's Principality Stadium on Friday night. / Samir Hussein/WireImage

One BBC reporter said of the show, “I’ve seen a lot of Oasis gigs and that was genuinely the best they’ve been since 1995, when I saw them support REM in Ireland and they instantly made the headliners seem irrelevant and past it.”

“Liam was like a dog unleashed, tearing through the setlist like he was singing it for the first time. Noel’s guitar playing was crisp and clear. They pulled it off,” he wrote, adding that it was, “one for the history books.”

Fans who weren’t there were still following along, with millions tuning in for livestreams on X and TikTok—one fan on the Oasis subreddit was watching from onboard their flight from Saskatchewan to Manchester, where Oasis will play a series of hometown shows next week.

After forming in 1991 and helping define the decade with their music—and shenanigans—Oasis broke up in 2009 after Noel left the band before a performance at a Paris music festival.

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In the intervening years, both brothers pursued other projects, with Liam releasing solo albums and Noel producing music with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, while continuing to trade barbs in the press and on social media.

In 2021, when asked whether the rumors he’d turned down a £100m reunion offer (more than $100 million) were true, Noel said, “There isn’t £100m in the music business, right, between all of us… If anybody wants to offer me £100m now, I’ll say it now, I’ll do it. I’ll do it for £100m.” Liam later responded on Twitter, saying he’d do the reunion for free.

The band’s reunion tour is shaping up to be one of the most profitable tours in history, with experts estimating that more than $1 billion will be spent by fans attending the 17 U.K. tour dates alone. The brothers will likely net more than $50 million each as a result of their reunion—or more than $100 million total.