LONDON — Today is going to be the day Oasis finally get back together. After a 15-year split, brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher announced on Tuesday that their band Oasis will reform for a reunion tour.
“This is it, this is happening,” said a post on the Oasis’s social media accounts.
The band will play 14 shows in the U.K. and Ireland next year, according to the announcement, including four dates in their native Manchester and four at London’s Wembley Stadium.
“The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised,” stated a press release, which added that shows outside Europe will take place next year — a hint that North American gigs could be announced next.
Oasis was one of the most successful of the 1990s, selling an estimated 75 million records and playing to stadiums across the world.
Both Gallagher brothers teased the announcement Monday, posting a short video to X showing a flickering “27.08.24” in the band’s famous logo font. Liam Gallagher posted on Sunday morning: “I never did like that word FORMER.”
And at 8 a.m. U.K. time (3 a.m. ET) on Tuesday the news came that legions of fans had been waiting for: A major tour that finally reunites the warring siblings.
The brothers were responsible for a string of hit albums and songs but were arguably just as well known for their off-stage antics, celebrity marriages and violent disagreements.
The band formed in Manchester, northwest England, in 1991 and got a recording contract on the strength of a single gig in Glasgow, Scotland, two years later where they were third on the bill.
The band’s 1994 debut album, “Definitely Maybe,” still considered one of the greatest British guitar records, catapulted them to stardom and made them figureheads of a resurgence of guitar music that the U.K. press called “Britpop.”
The follow-up album, “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” cemented their star status with songs such as “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” which led to success and extensive touring across Europe and North America.
Both Gallaghers have built successful solo careers after Oasis. Liam recently played a string of arena shows to celebrate the 30th anniversary of “Definitely Maybe,” while Noel has played with his band, High Flying Birds, since 2010 and released four albums.
But while Gallaghers routinely play old Oasis songs at shows, for many fans it doesn’t capture the magic of the two brothers appearing together.
The Gallaghers haven’t performed together since a backstage fight at a music festival in Paris in 2009.
A rapprochement between them has often seemed unlikely, with both men trading insults and barbs on social media and in interviews.
But the past few weeks have seen a definite warming of relations. Noel paid his younger brother some compliments in an interview last week, praising his rasping vocals. “It’s the delivery or the tone of his voice and the attitude,” he said. He compared Liam’s voice to “10 shots of tequila on a Friday night” whereas his own was more like “half a Guinness on a Tuesday.”
The band’s reformation may have been prompted by other successful reunions of their 90s peers. Blur, Oasis’s rivals in a U.K. chart battle in 1995, reformed to play two dates last year at Wembley Stadium. The first Blur date sold out all 90,000 tickets in minutes.
The Stone Roses, another Manchester band and a longstanding inspiration to the Gallaghers, reformed for a series of gigs in 2012 after a gap of 16 years.
Income from recorded music has diminished since the advent of streaming services, but live music for big-name acts is booming. According to one industry estimate the Oasis reunion could make £400 million ($528 million).
Taylor Swift’s Eras tour has made well over $1 billion in revenue and had such an effect on national economies that it was thought to have have boosted hotel sales across the U.S. and had an inflationary effect in Sweden.
