To attend the first leg of the Oasis tour, Jeff Jarrett traveled from St. Louis, Missouri to Cardiff, Wales. In August he also went to Soldier Field in Chicago. But the best evening was in September in Pasadena, California because for the first time he saw his favorite band together with his 6-year-old son Wolf. “It was the wonderful, noisy evening I was hoping for,” says Jarrett, who is 44 and works as a booking agent and manager. He proudly remembers seeing his son get high-fives from other fans. «Wolf sang He acquiesces and I giggled like Mr. Burns dei Simpsons: “My son loves Oasis, the plan is working”».
Fathers and sons. Dads and daughters. Fathers with their fathers. Husbands, boyfriends, friends. Former college roommates, current roommates. And no one behaved badly, at least judging by what I saw over Labor Day weekend at the first of the band's two concerts at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Can I say it? I was impressed, excited and, yes, surprised by all this positive masculinity. Everywhere I went I saw happy, sensitive, emotional, caring men. At the merch stand as well as at the tequila bar. Even in the parking lot, where a guy handed out beers to passers-by and invited them to watch Sunday's football game on the screen he had placed on a folding table.
«Lots of hugs, kisses and tears between men. And not a single fight in the three concerts I went to,” wrote me after the Labor Day show Bob Ferguson, a Gen «I've never seen so many dads alone with their children at a rock concert and singing together as if it were the most natural thing in the world, singing “I'm a rock'n'roll star!” on the lawn of a football stadium. I like that Oasis is generating a civil society.”
Photo: Harriet K. Bols
Civility has never been the Gallaghers' strong suit. The reputation of being rude preceded them and in the 90s and 2000s it was clearly seen in the half-finished interviews in which they offended or made fun of journalists and in the concerts where Liam spat beer on the audience. Older brother Noel loved to hurl digs at other musicians: Phil Collins was “a shopping center bald guy”, Robbie Williams was “the fat dancer from Take That” and so on. When Michael Hutchence of INXS introduced Oasis at the 1996 Brit Awards, Noel began his acceptance speech by saying that “failures shouldn't be handing out awards”.
The Gallaghers also insulted each other in front of everyone. After the band split in 2009, Liam spent years needling Noel on Twitter, calling him “potato” and “a sad little dwarf.” In turn, Noel described Liam as “the angriest man in the world, a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
Now, 16 years after Noel ended the first Oasis stint in Paris – apparently following a backstage argument, during which Liam brandished a guitar like an ax – the brothers have decided to start each concert by entering the stage hugging each other. Hugs and kisses galore.
Does time heal wounds and soften even the hardest and most indomitable rockers? Some might say it helps to organize a tour estimated to bring in $1.6 billion. But Paul Adams, 54, born and raised in Manchester just like Noel and Liam, offers some low-brow psychology on the dynamic between the brothers. «You must understand that Northern men are among the most passionate that exist. When you argue with someone in the north of England, it becomes part of your identity. It's like a dress you wear… But it's all a pose. The moment the audience was taken away from them, they both felt remorse for how it had gone. There has always been a desire for reconciliation. We can make a cynical comment when we see them go on stage hugging each other, but the truth is that they need it.”
According to Jason Singer, aka Michigander, a Nashville singer-songwriter who cites Oasis as “one of the reasons I make music”, fans also need reconciliation. “These concerts take people back to a time when society wasn't so polarized,” says Singer, 33, who saw one of the Chicago dates
Press photo
At MetLife I met a few people. There were two longtime friends who almost completely ignored the band on stage to sing every single word to each other. A little further on, a boy with his girlfriend and her parents had deliberately chosen that evening, that concert, to meet his future in-laws for the first time (nice move given that the couple of white-haired gentlemen seemed to be Oasis superfans).
To my right, two brothers from the Bronx, Frank, 34, and Joseph, 27. I met the former when he asked me if we could link arms to do the Poznań, a moment beloved by fans during Cigarettes and Alcoholwhen Liam asks the audience to turn away from the stage and jump up and down.
Like many of the fans I met that night, it wasn't their first Oasis concert. Frank, a construction worker like his brother, has never been abroad, but when the reunion and the start of the UK tour was announced, he says, «Joseph filled me with messages: “We have to go!”. When we were kids my brother discovered them because I listened to them. Their music brought us so much closer. They are brothers, we are brothers.”
When tickets for the English dates went on sale, the pair stayed up all night in New York and eventually managed to get two tickets for one of seven sold-out London dates in July and August at Wembley. «We arrived and seeing people wearing Oasis merch thrilled me», says Frank. «Then the lights dimmed, the first notes of the intro started and I hugged my brother. They were all around with their families and friends. Everyone felt the same thing: a sense of unity, of community. Then they arrived, Liam and Noel, hand in hand… I collapsed. That is, tears!
Photo: Harriet K. Bols
“I cried four times,” Singer says, recalling the concert at Soldier Field. «It was the best evening of my life. I've seen crazy and incredible concerts, but this one tops them all. I really can't stop thinking about it. I've never experienced anything like it. I've heard a lot of people say this is the white male Eras Tour. I don't know how anyone could do something like this in the future.”
Impossible, Adams replies: «There is no one who can get back together and overcome them. It is almost certainly the most successful reunion tour ever. The band sounds better than ever. It is working class music underpinned by ambition and the ability to see beauty in the ordinary. Noel's songs talk about hope, friendship, joy. Noel has the ability to write melancholic chord progressions perfect for the hymns sung by his brother. These are songs that are needed today more than ever. Today everything sucks and so you go to the concert, drink a beer, hug the people around you, sing the songs you know by heart and think that everything will be fine.”
From Rolling Stone US.
