[Author’s note: This will be the first of two nearly finished drafts that sat unpublished while I was busy relocating overseas for the past couple months. Better late than never, and who cares?]

Late one night in a rural town in Wales, singer Liam Gallagher decided to bring some drunken strangers he’d just met at a local pub back to horse around in the studio where his band Oasis was recording their second album. The unexpected party stumbled upon Liam’s older brother, guitarist and chief songwriter Noel, still at work laying down tracks. Infuriated by the disruption, Noel grabbed a baseball bat and cracked Liam over the head. The album went on to sell over 22 million copies. 1995’s What’s the Story (Morning Glory) became so ubiquitous a lad didn’t need to own it to know nearly every song.

When Noel and Liam Gallagher literally came to blows backstage before a 2009 concert in Paris, it was enough to not only cancel a tour with only two stops left, but also end Oasis forever. Or so we thought. 

By the time the brothers broke their 16-year standoff and walked out in front of New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium with clasped hands raised, a generation of middle-aged adults was waiting with disposable income and feverish 90s nostalgia.

Tabloid headlines and tweets about the prospects of this reunion flickered on the backdrop screen, coalescing around one message: The guns have fallen silent. The band settled in and the whole stadium rose to its feet. The opening refrain, “It’s good to be back / it’s good to be back,” seemed tailor-made for this moment.

“Don’t believe the hype, we love Americans. We’ve even hired one of your people on drums,” explained Liam, gesturing back to Joey Waronker on the stool behind him. The 2025 band was rounded out by founding rhythm guitarist Bonehead and 2000s Oasis veterans Gem Archer on guitar and Andy Bell on bass.

Oasis’ sound updates the Beatles’ melodic template with the forceful immediacy of 90s rock while keeping the chords simple. They are an everyman’s band that invites celebration over introspection. Noel Gallagher doesn’t write songs; he writes anthems crafted to be belted out by arenas full of rowdy fans and accompanied by the clinking of pint glasses.

Sporting his trademark light rain jacket and shaking his seen-but-not-heard tambourine and maracas, Liam adopted his preferred singing posture: leaning forward and tilting his chin up towards the microphone, arms folded behind his back. He still projects enough natural swagger that he can stand completely motionless in front of 70,000 people during instrumental sections without looking awkward. Between songs, he bantered at the crowd in a thick Manchester accent. He railed against record executives who were supposedly pessimistic about this obviously lucrative tour, and directed everyone to link arms and jump in unison like English football fans.

Liam’s singing emulates his idol John Lennon, with one part less sweetness and an extra coating of Lennon’s sneering raspiness. Sadly, years of rock-star living have left his voice a dampened and congested shadow of its older self. Not that it mattered in the biggest moments, when the crowd drowned out the singing from the stage. Liam and Noel stepped back from the microphone and didn’t even bother singing the choruses of their biggest hits “Wonderwall” or “Don’t Look Back in Anger.”

The setlist drew primarily from their multiplatinum first two albums, with just a smattering from their later, less popular output. I couldn’t tell if the vibrations in my throat came from my own singing or the rumbling of the bleachers under my feet. Without the band slipping a less raucous number or slightly deeper cut in between every few singalongs, we might not have had the stamina or hydration to keep up for two hours.

Midway through the main set and for the first half of the encore, Liam left the stage for Noel to take over. Noel, a self-described cat to Liam’s dog and presumably the longer holdout on the reunion, seemed to loosen up during these times and allowed himself a wry smile. The stadium practically shook as the audience joined in for the chorus of “Little by Little.” Noel’s singing voice, thinner and more tender than his brother’s with an almost American twang, sounded in great shape on ballads like “Talk Tonight,” when the audience quieted down enough for it to be audible.

A classic 90s Oasis concert would’ve ended with a rendition of “I Am the Walrus,” but fans didn’t wait this long for covers. Liam instead paid homage by slipping lines of “Octopus’s Garden” into the Magical Mystery Tour-esque single “Whatever.” He also localized the show by dedicating “Live Forever” to Mr. John McEnroe.

From the selectiveness of this tour (a handful of shows in the UK, a handful of shows in major North American cities, a few stops in Latin America, Japan, Korea, and Australia) and the conditions that bore it, one expects this to be a one-time thing. The tour—announced nearly a year in advance—would lose its magic if it became an annual occurrence, and the ship has sailed for writing new material as Oasis. 

After a majestic finale of “Champagne Supernova,” Liam walked over to Noel for a highly anticipated embrace. The crackling fireworks overhead felt anticlimactic after the explosion of energy filling the stadium.

Whether the reconciliation between the brothers was genuine or affected was ultimately beside the point. Fans needed this. On a night that felt like a time capsule of the 1990s’ second British invasion, MetLife Stadium’s location in the apparent middle of nowhere only contributed to the suspension of time and place. Even Liam’s Instagram afterward seemed to reflect the disorientation: “NEW JERSEY NEW YORK WHEREVER THE FUCK WE ARE NICE ONE FOR HAVING US.”