Oasis is Back, But You Can’t See Them

Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis on stage at a San Diego, CA show in 2005. Will Fresch via Wikimedia Commons

Following years of brotherly feuding, solo music ventures and several negative Tweets, the iconic British band Oasis has reunited for a U.K. and Ireland tour. Nearly 15 years since the band broke up and last played together, Liam and Noel Gallagher have squashed their familial beef and have decided to reunite on stage together again.

Oasis was formed in 1991 and hails from Manchester, England. The band’s most prominent members are frontman Liam Gallagher, and his brother, lead guitarist and vocalist Noel Gallagher. The remainder of the Oasis lineup has taken many different forms over the years.

The band saw breakthrough success with their debut album, “Definitely Maybe,” which features Oasis classics, such as “Live Forever” and “Supersonic.” However, Oasis saw their greatest success with their sophomore album, “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” The album features hit songs, such as “Wonderwall,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Champagne Supernova.” 

For several years, Oasis was at the top of their game and was arguably the most popular band in Britain. Their performance at the Knebworth Festival in 1996 solidified Oasis’ legendary status, playing for 250,000 fans spanning over two nights.

Despite Oasis’ major success, the brothers constantly feuded with one another, and this toxicity led to the band’s demise. After years of disagreements, slandering one another in interviews and threatening to leave the band, Oasis split up in August 2009, following a backstage incident at a show in Paris, France, which saw Liam Gallagher nearly hit his brother in the head with a guitar.

Liam Gallagher has gone on to produce his own solo work, while Noel Gallagher created his band, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. For the last 15 years, Oasis hasn’t played a single show together, essentially going radio silent — that is, until now.

On Aug. 27, the band announced that it will be headlining 15 U.K. shows and two Ireland shows in the summer of 2025. Tickets for the tour went on sale via Ticketmaster on Aug. 30, and naturally, this came with many challenges for buyers. Due to the high demand for Oasis tickets, issues occurred in the anxiety-inducing Ticketmaster queue, with fans struggling to pick tickets and add them to their cart. 

Several fans encountered error messages after they were let out of the queue and didn’t even have the opportunity to explore ticket options. However, the biggest, and arguably most controversial, discrepancy that occurred was the issue of “dynamic pricing” that arose during the sale.

“Dynamic pricing,” or “surge pricing,” is the practice of increasing the value of a product when it is in high demand. With great shock, many Oasis fans found themselves falling victim to dynamic pricing. Fans found themselves paying a much larger amount than anticipated or missing out on tickets overall.

Face value tickets that should’ve cost ￡150 more than doubled in price to around ￡350. This left fans contemplating whether or not they wanted to spend this large of an amount on a concert ticket. Many have called out Ticketmaster for their unreliable platform, which has been notoriously problematic in recent years.

Many have also urged Oasis to give fans refunds for these ridiculous ticket prices. However, no immediate action has been taken on this issue as of now. This ticket price fiasco has led to many questions being raised, mainly focusing on the band’s greediness and motives for going on this reunion tour.

There is a genuinely musically motivated aspect to Oasis’ reunion tour. As mentioned earlier, Oasis saw huge mainstream success and has the numbers to prove it. Oasis have not lost popularity as a group, as many of their big hits have stood the test of time — one of these songs being “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” which has become a sort of anthem for the Brits. The quality of the music is there, and the fanbase remains loyal.

However, there remains a lot of speculation regarding the monetary aspect of this reunion tour. A BBC article estimates that the Gallagher brothers will earn roughly ￡50 million each to complete the tour — quite a hefty amount for 15 shows. If this estimate is true, it would offer a pretty clear explanation as to why the brothers reconciled enough to go on tour.

Additionally, many people have criticized Oasis for their greediness and lack of action regarding the Ticketmaster craze that surrounded sales for the upcoming tour. With dynamic pricing having dominated many of the purchases, fans are angry and want to feel respected and appreciated by artists by having tickets listed at a reasonable price.

Music artists can dictate, to a certain extent, how tickets for their shows are priced. A recent example is The Cure’s Robert Smith and his valiant efforts to combat Ticketmaster’s unfair pricing for The Cure’s 2023 “Shows of a Lost World” tour. Smith went to great lengths to have ticket costs be as low as they could be for fans and challenged and criticized Ticketmaster in the process.

If Oasis wanted to, they could have been more vocal about ticket pricing and could have been more sympathetic to their fans who are emptying their pockets. And for a band like Oasis — specifically Liam and Noel Gallagher — it is known that they have no issues being vocal.

Oasis’ reunion marks an iconic and long-awaited moment in music history. Is the tour characterized by a love of the fans, a large sum of money or the Gallagher brothers finally working it out with each other? Who really knows? 

Let’s just hope they make it past the first show of the tour.