A look back at the 4 times I’ve been lucky enough to see Oasis live, and a look forward to what will surely be one of the best runs of shows we ever see.
It’s mind blowing to me that some people are going to experience their first Oasis live shows next year. I can’t imagine how excited you are if you’re in that position, and I honestly don’t think you have any idea what you’re in for. Anyone like me who was lucky enough to watch them before knows what I’m talking about.
The energy at an Oasis show is unrivalled. If you’ve seen Liam live, you’ll have got a taste of it, especially at one of the bigger gigs in Manchester and at the DM30 tour this year. Full voiced singalongs and some jumping around at the bigger songs. I’ve seen Liam and Noel over 20 times combined, and they’re always amazing, but their shows are nothing compared to what next year will be like.
Oasis is really the sum of its parts, and when we see both Liam and Noel on stage together, the atmosphere will be indescribable. Noel on guitar and backing vocals for songs we’ve seen Liam do over the past few years, hopefully some songs that haven’t been heard since they split up and I imagine the crowd will be even louder for Noel’s songs during Oasis than they have been even at the biggest of High Flying Birds shows.
Just think how much it’ll mean to everyone who’s there, you’ll be surrounded by people who have been waiting for this moment for either 15 years, or have never experienced it before. Hopefully this retrospective review of the shows I’ve seen will give you an idea what to expect, or evoke some memories if you’ve seen them before.
Also shout up in the comments if you were at any of these shows!
My first Oasis show: V Festival 2005, Weston Park, Staffordshire
I still remember it like it was yesterday, how excited I was to see my heroes. I’d grown up hearing their music pretty much for as long as I can remember on the radio, then had moved on to listening to their albums, then into a full blown obsession each time they released a new album, and I watched their live shows on TV and DVD often.
But I wasn’t able to see them live until I was 18, on the Don’t Believe the Truth tour at the Northern leg of V Festival 2005. I was obsessed with the album when it came out, and it remains up there as a favourite of mine.
I’d watched so many live shows but I still wasn’t prepared for the energy that came. As soon as ‘Turn Up the Sun’ kicked in, the entire field started bouncing, and everyone was singing every single word back at them…and this was just an album track!
Then ‘Lyla’ kicked in and the place somehow went even crazier, and it stayed that way throughout the whole show. Every song sounded incredible but I remember ‘Champagne Supernova’ being the absolute highlight of the night for me, that song goes to a new level live.
It’s interesting looking back at the setlist for this one too, as they played a lot from Don’t Believe the Truth, and the only other tracks were from What’s The Story and Definitely Maybe, so none of the b-sides and all the other albums were left untouched. That said, I’m sure they did Songbird too, though not confident enough to update setlist.fm!
They finished with a cover of ‘My Generation’, which in my opinion is a lot better than ‘I Am the Walrus’. Check out the version on Spotify or a live version if you can, its incredible live. I’d prefer this or ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’ as the closing track in 2025.
Some of the TV highlights from the Chelmsford gig are on Youtube. This was the Southern leg of V Festival, so not the night I was at, but the crowd still looks great!
Cardiff Millennium Stadium, December 2005
I couldn’t wait for them to go away and write another album, so I got tickets to see them again on the same tour. This was a mad night, sort of a mini festival in the Millennium Stadium in December with the roof on, with a huge support bill.
They had The Subways, The Coral, Razorlight and Foo Fighters all on before Oasis!
The set was about the same…but with ‘The Masterplan’, which was one of my favourite songs! The crowd was again, ridiculously loud and energetic.
There’s a home video recording of this Cardiff 2005 show here, which is pretty funny:
Heaton Park, 2009
Now my 3rd and 4th Oasis shows both have stories attached to them. I went to Heaton Park in 2009 for the opening night of 4. It was a lovely sunny day with Kasabian supporting (The Enemy pulled out of our day, which would’ve been great too).
Huge excitement in the air, they’d been away from Manchester for 4 years and the place was rocking. ‘Rock n Roll Star’ opened and part way through the song…the sound cut out. Then they tried ‘Lyla’…and it cut out again.
The band go off stage, and the atmosphere got very very tense, with everyone expecting the worst. Noel comes on to explain that it’s the generator, and that everyone’s getting their money back. It takes a fair while, but eventually they’re back on stage, with everything fixed.
We weren’t sure whether we’d get a shortened set as curfew was an hour later, but it didn’t seem to stop them, and they just played the entire set and went a good half hour over curfew. Nobody kicked them off stage!
It was honestly like the threat of the gig being cancelled gave everyone even more energy than usual. That was my one and only Oasis Manchester show, and it’s hard to find the words really. Anyone who has tickets for the hometown ones you’ll see it yourselves next year.
It was the best versions of most of the songs I’ve seen so far, and there were so many favourites that I hadn’t seen before up to that point. ‘Slide Away’, ‘My Big Mouth’ and a very unexpected ‘Roll With It’.
The Dig Out Your Soul tracks sounded great too, especially ‘The Shock of the Lightning’, ‘I’m Outta Time’ and ‘Falling Down’. That said, all Oasis gigs I’ve been to involved a recently released new album taking up 5-6 of the songs on the setlist, I can only imagine what it’ll be like next year when its all classics.
I was really excited for Noel’s tracks that night too, with ‘Half the World Away’ and ‘The Masterplan’ both getting played. Obviously that novelty isn’t quite the same now after 15+ High Flying Birds gigs but at the time it was!
It was the first time I’d seen ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ done acoustic, and I do really like that version, though I’d hope the proper version is in for 2025.
This ‘Champagne Supernova’ from that night is the best I’ve seen, and it’s the one that will define the gig next year I reckon.
Incredibly, someone captured the power cuts on YouTube! Now these videos PERFECTLY capture an Oasis gig atmosphere in Manchester. Absolute chaos
V Festival 2009, Weston Park, Staffordshire
The show I saw at V Festival 2009, where I saw my first Oasis gig, turned out to be the last one for 16 years, though there was no way to know that at the time.
It was pretty much the same as the Heaton Park one, but with a few less new ones. Probably closer to what it’ll be like next time.
Then they cancelled the Chelmsford V Festival show the next night, and split up the next week!
It’ll be interesting to see if we get a chance to know when the last Oasis shows are this time, or if they’ll leave it in the air like Blur do whenever they reform.
Here’s an hour of fan shot footage…look at that old camera!!
And an audio of the show here:
Drop us a comment if you were at one of these shows below, and let us know which one you’re off to next year. If you missed out on a ticket, don’t lose hope and check out our Oasis ticket resale guide.
