Inside the Oasis reunion - why the Gallagher brothers are finally playing live again

One of the driving forces behind the Oasis reunion, which kicks off tonight in Cardiff, is that new generations have discovered the "attitude, swagger and music" of the Manchester band since their last live show, according to two of their leading biographers. Music journalists Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain first met the brothers in 1994 when they were playing tiny venues. They have since interviewed them dozens of times - tracking their incredible rise as Oasis became one of the world's biggest bands.

"Noel's main justification for not reuniting with Liam in the past was that everyone who wanted to see Oasis live had surely had plenty of chances," explains Hamish. "His heroes, the Smiths and the Stone Roses, were both in and out in five years and never really played stadiums. Whereas Oasis had 15-plus years of playing stadiums all over the world, so even if you were a toddler when they came out, you could watch them with a legally bought pint in hand in 2009.

"That's all changed. After the Supersonic documentary, you've had kids buying into the whole thing: the attitude, the swagger. It's the excitement of new generations who weren't born when Oasis came out that is driving this as much as money."

Ted adds: "And why can't it be about both things? You can enjoy being paid and enjoy having a song you wrote in your bedroom sung back at you by 80,000 people. I first saw Oasis in early 1994 at the 100 Club on Oxford Street and they just somehow seemed so much louder and more powerful and more effortless than everyone else at the time. That hasn't changed. There was always a euphoria to their shows that you couldn't get anywhere else."

Hamish again: "They've both said to me, at various times, that they miss being in Oasis: 'Being part of the circus', as Noel put it - I'm sure they're both loving all the madness around the reunion."

Now their new book, A Sound So Very Loud, gives the inside story of every Oasis song - plus a trove of facts about the 70 million-album selling band, whose world tour sold out overnight when it was announced last August.

"I always remember something Liam said to me in an interview about the first time Oasis played in Japan, a week or so after their first album came out," recalls Hamish. "He said, 'Just hearing people who speak a different language singing your music back was mad. Say, if a Japanese band came out now, and they came over here, even if everyone was like, 'They sound like f***ing God', I'd be like, 'You need to do it in English.'

"But we were sounding exactly like, and they were getting it... the music was powerful. It was bypassing the language barrier, and just hitting them with the feeling'."

Ted adds: "Generation after generation have been getting that same feeling just from YouTube clips or TikTok or whatever: Oasis just have this sort of instant, primal connection with people."

Oasis, originally called Rain, was formed in 1991 by drummer Tony McCarroll, sacked before their second album, bassist Paul McGuigan, who left in 1999, guitarist Paul Arthurs, AKA Bonehead (who left the band in 1999 but is now back - it was his front room on the cover of their debut album, Definitely Maybe), and singer Chris Hutton - replaced by Liam, who arrived with the new name. Having played their first gig under the Oasis moniker in August 1991 at the former Boardwalk Club, a small venue just outside Manchester's city centre, Noel, an aspiring guitarist and songwriter then working as a roadie for Inspiral Carpets, offered to join - on the condition he'd be the sole songwriter.

Soon the band had a new look and an anthemic new sound - famous for its sing-a-long simplicity - and were attracting serious buzz with their live shows. Spotted by Creation Records founder Alan McGee, they signed to the label and debut album, Definitely Maybe, came out in August 1994. The Gallaghers quickly became darlings of the music press and tabloids for their bickering and "swagger".

So was it the music, or the attitude?

"There's a famous interview with Liam and Noel that was so good it got released as a single, Wibbling Rivalry, and they're arguing about exactly this," continues Ted. "Noel is saying, 'All that matters are the songs.' Liam is saying, 'You need all the antics and misbehaviour and all that stuff.' Who's right? They both are. If you just have the songs, it's boring. If you just have the antics, you don't care because the music is rubbish."

Adds Hamish: "In comparison to a lot of bands of their era, they made big claims. I remember an interview with a young Zoe Ball in 1994, and Liam says, 'We're the best band about, today, on the planet. It's a fact.' And if you say that, you'd better be able to back it up." It turned out they could. Exploding onto the scene when a lot of indie music was a bit middle class, their council house roots in Manchester suburb Burnage informed a "take no prisoners" approach.

It was rebellious and exciting. "Even the most allegedly middle-class bands of the nineties would today be considered working class in comparison to most contemporary artists," Hamish says today.

"But yes. That definitely had a lot to do with it [their success]. They were connecting with people who would never have listened to guitar music before. Liam himself told me he used to think anyone with a guitar was 'a weirdo'. After Oasis came out, lots of people no longer thought that."

Ted adds: "Right from the start, Definitely Maybe was advertised in football programmes. It got five-star reviews in dance music magazines. People just saw themselves in Oasis. You had, like, a balding guy in the band on guitar, which you didn't get with Blur or Suede."

Talking about their former arch-rivals, Blur enjoyed their own massive reunion tour and comeback album in 2023, playing two huge Wembley gigs (it's noteworthy Oasis are playing five nights at the stadium, with another two in the autumn) and may have inspired the Oasis get-together - but will the Gallaghers record a new LP, too?

"The nineties are back and bigger than ever, that's for sure," says Hamish. "Blur, Pulp, Suede... all playing bigger shows than they did back in the day. Shed Seven had two - two! - number one albums last year! But an Oasis reunion is so much bigger than anything else, and would have been so much bigger whenever they decided to do it."

Ted adds: "I don't think anybody knows the answer to the new album question other than Liam and Noel. And even they probably don't know. Nobody can predict how they are going to feel after these shows."

Noel undoubtedly writes a great tune and a catchy chorus, but will Oasis ultimately stand the test of time longer-term alongside their idols The Beatles or Beach Boys? "They already have," says Hamish. "If you go on TikTok, it's full of kids dancing around and miming along to songs that came out 30 years ago. They view Oasis in the same way kids in the 1990s viewed the Beatles: as these mythical sort of superheroes."

Says Ted: "The sentiments in the songs, stuff like, 'Tonight, I'm a rock 'n' roll star', that's going to make as much sense to a teenager in 2094 as it did in 1994. It's universal."

While guitar music has never gone away, no bands have cut through to the mainstream like Oasis. "No one cares what Arctic Monkeys are up to: you never see them in public unless they're playing a show," says Ted.

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Interviewing Oasis was always great fun, too. "Liam and Noel both love showing off, love how good they are at it," says Hamish. "Ninety-five per cent of the time, interviewing famous people is like pulling teeth. Liam and Noel are the exact opposite."

Ted adds: "They're just truly world class at interviews. Our book started off as a song-by-song thing, but we've individually had so many fun times with them that we had to put our encounters in as well. I remember doing the interview where Noel said, John Lennon-style, that Oasis were bigger than God. He knew exactly what he was doing!"

So what can fans heading to Cardiff tonight - for the first UK and Ireland show, before the band heads overseas - expect?

"Because there's going to be so many different generations, they're going to be unique and different to past Oasis shows, in the best way possible," says Ted. Hamish adds: "Noel has described this tour as 'a lap of honour for the band'. There's no album, nothing to promote except their own legacy. So just all the big songs and a level of excitement and energy even they haven't seen since Knebworth."

• A Sound So Very Loud: The Inside Story of Every Oasis Song, by Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain (Macmillan, £22) is out now