Oasis reunites: Story of the British band, why they split, and their enduring popularity

Oasis – one of Britain’s biggest bands which defined the Britpop genre of music in the 1990s – will tour the United Kingdom and Ireland in the summer of 2025, with plans “underway to go to other continents outside Europe next year”.

The two brothers who led the band – frontman Liam Gallagher and songwriter and rhythm guitarist Noel Gallagher – and have shared a tempestuous relationship, trading barbs publicly for decades, seem to have buried the hatchet for the reunion. For now.

Who are Oasis?

Formed in Manchester in 1991, the Britpop band originally included Liam Gallagher, Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, Paul McGuigan, and Tony McCaroll. Liam’s elder brother Noel joined a few months later. The story goes that a record executive spotted them after they reportedly gate-crashed a gig in Glasgow in 1993.

Oasis shot to fame with its first album ‘Definitely, Maybe’ in 1994. The album, with tracks ‘Live Forever’, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’, ‘Supersonic’ and ‘Slide Away’, became the fastest-selling debut album in British music history at the time.

The band’s second album ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?’ in 1995 catapulted Oasis to worldwide popularity and critical acclaim. It featured tracks such as ‘Wonderwall’, ‘Champagne Supernova’, and ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, which topped the charts.

One year later, more than 2.5 lakh people attended their two-day concerts at the Knebworth Festival in England. More than 4% of the British population applied for tickets to see Oasis at the festival, according to an estimate.

The band released seven studio albums, two live albums, and 27 singles before a dramatic split in 2009. Oasis has sold more than 75 million records globally as of 2024. After the split, the Gallagher brothers embarked on successful solo careers. Noel formed his own band ‘Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ and released four albums. Liam continued to perform with the now-defunct band ‘Beady Eye’, which comprised remaining Oasis members. He has also released several solo and collaborative albums since.

Why did Oasis split?

Over the years, the perennially feuding brothers have made headlines for trading insults against each other – before and after the split.

Liam once called his elder brother a “sad little dwarf”. Noel called Liam the “angriest man you will ever meet”. “He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup,” Noel quipped.

The rivalry and insults came to a head at the Rock en Siene festival in Paris in August 2009. A dramatic backstage altercation culminated in Noel’s departure from the band after Liam reportedly flung Noel’s guitar as the band was about to go on stage.

“He started wielding it like an axe… And I am making light of it because it’s kind of what I do, but it was a real unnecessary violent act and he’s swinging this guitar around. He nearly took my face off with it. And it ended up on the floor and I put it out of its misery,” Noel later revealed. Noel quit the band that night. Oasis have not performed since.

The duo has often denied any possibility of a reunion in the past. In 2015, Noel said if he was ever going to agree for a reunion, “it would only be for the money”. Liam in a 2019 interview with the Rolling Stone said, “Oasis is done. If you missed them, that’s f***ing tough luck.”

In February this year, Liam claimed he called Noel about a proposal for an Oasis tour and blamed his brother for refusing the offer. “It was a big tour, a lot of money. He turned it down. I get it, he’s got a divorce going down,” Liam said.

What is behind Oasis’ enduring popularity?

Coming from the working-class council estates of Manchester, Oasis is often credited with reviving the Britpop movement, which was about a celebration of British culture and pride, in the 1990s along with bands like Blur, Suede, and Pulp. With simple upbeat lyrics and Beatles-esque guitar melodies, Oasis arrived when guitar music was having a resurgence in Britain. It was a counter to the grunge movement in the US, which had come to dominate the music scene in the early 90s.

Liam’s raw guttural vocals, Noel’s melodies and lyrics, and the band’s rebellious charisma struck a chord with the youth especially when Britain’s political landscape was changing. They were dubbed “working class lads” who sang songs about wanting to be in the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band and then achieved it. Their searing rock anthems spoke to the hedonistic youth of the 90s whose aspirations had not been articulated in the mainstream at the time.

Between quarrelling siblings, lifestyles, bitter rivalry with Blur – both the bands released a single on the same day – meant that Oasis continued to be in the tabloids for their antics as much as their music in the pre-internet era and became a phenomenon and part of culture.

Despite splitting 15 years ago, Liam’s style – Parka, bucket hat, leather jacket and John Lennon-like glasses, mod haircut – has come to define street-wear in Britain and for fans across the world.

For a generation of younger fans who have only streamed their music, the reunion is an opportunity to see the band perform live, if the truce between the brothers holds.

As Noel once said, “You can’t get bored of 15,000 people shouting for Wonderwall. That’s better than drugs.”