Oasis Are Getting Back Together For A Reunion Tour In 2025

In April 2009, I watched Oasis perform live at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore. It was part of the band’s tour to promote their album at the time called Dig Out Your Soul, which, as it turned out, is the last album they would record together as a band. 

I didn’t know it at the time, but that Singapore show was one of the last that Oasis would be performing in together. By August that year, Noel Gallagher would quit the band, saying that he could no longer stomach working with his brother, Liam. That was that and Oasis were no more.

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But on Tuesday, August 27, exactly 15 years since they called it quits, Oasis announced that they were reuniting by way of stadium shows in the UK and Ireland set for next year, 2025. That’s big news for the industry as a whole—quarreling siblings who play together in a band is always fodder for the news media, let alone of the biggest-selling rock bands on the planet getting back together—but even more so for the tens of thousands, possibly even millions of fans who never got to see them perform live.

As any fan would tell you, the Gallagher brothers were the constants in the band that had a revolving cast of members. Noel was the lead guitarist and songwriter, while Liam was the lead vocalist and all-around hellraiser. The brothers were known for arguing constantly, especially with each other, and those squabbles often became violent. One time, Noel reportedly hit Liam in the head with a cricket bat. 

But at least one thing the band was known for besides yelling at each other and a tendency to engage in fistfights was its music. Oasis was one of the biggest bands on the planet in the 1990s, and, along with bands like Blur, Suede, and Pulp, one of the progenitors of the movement that came to be known as Britpop.

Oasis toured extensively throughout their heyday in the 90s and the early 2000s, and at one point, was even scheduled to play a show here in the Philippines in 2002. But it was a time when the country was rocked by frequent bombings and terrorist attacks, and Oasis decided to cancel its show in October of that year. The band had not had an opportunity to come back since.

Oasis live in Singapore in 2009

And so when it was announced that the Noel, Liam, and the rest of the band were going to be performing in Singapore in April of 2009, I didn’t hesitate. I even had the opportunity to interview Liam backstage just before the start of the show. At the time, I remember feeling just a tiny bit anxious about being face-to-face with the singer. His reputation for sudden outbursts and all-around rock star behavior preceded him and I was afraid I (and the rest of the contingent of music journalists I was with) would e on the receiving end of one of his fits. 

But the interview session proceeded without a hitch. I wouldn’t call the Liam I met in 2009 open and gregarious—he still carried an air of arrogance and self-importance that I figured came with being one of the biggest rock stars in the planet—but he sat down and answered questions from the media as politely as he could. He threw expletives here and there, but rather than take offense, I took them more as an insight about who he is in real life. It was clear he wasn’t putting on airs and pretending to be likable just because he was facing the press. The Liam Gallagher I met that day seemed like the real Liam Gallagher, if a slightly tame and surprisingly well-mannered version of him.

As for the show the band put on, well, I don’t think it’d be a surprise say that it was one for the ages. I’ve been to my fair share of concerts over the years, but the crowd that greeted the band as they stepped out onstage that evening was possibly the loudest I’ve ever been a part of (yes, louder than U2, louder than Coldplay, louder than Madonna).   

The setlist was a mix of newer songs from “Dig Out Your Soul,” which didn’t really do much as far as pumping the crowd up, but when they did older favorites like “Rock ‘N Roll Star,” “Roll With It,” Cigarettes & Alcohol,” and “Slide Away,” “Morning Glory,” the response was instantaneous—everybody knew all the words and sang them right back at them.

Liam with his trademark singing stance

While Liam was front and center for most of the show, including the global hit and now-videoke-staple “Wonderwall,” Noel did vocal duties on a couple of the numbers, including the classic “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” He performed it during the encore, when Liam disappeared.

On “Champagne Supernova,” there was just a palpable sense of kinship and camaraderie that I felt like hugging everyone there, even the obnoxious guy behind us who kept banging himself to us as if we were willing participants of a mosh pit (we weren’t). The big finish was their cover of the Beatles classic “I Am the Walrus,” which was a neat little bow that tied the Oasis sound up with their obvious ‘60s music influence. My friends and I staggered out of the venue ears ringing, sweat-soaked and dehydrated, but with the biggest smiles on our faces.

The band continued their tour over the next few weeks with dates in the rest of Asia, South America, and Europe, but it was after a show in Manchester that Noel made that fateful announcement that he was leaving the band. Both brothers continued on with their careers with different solo projects—Noel with the High Flying Birds and Liam with Beady Eye. Liam even made a stop here in Manila in 2017, and yes, he did sing a couple of Oasis songs. But as any fan of Oasis would tell you, it just wasn’t the same.

This time, though, with the announcement that the brothers have finally, supposedly put their differences aside, fans might actually get the chance to see what the band is all about. The world, is, of course, a different place—the world’s most popular music stars offer a very different sound than the one Oasis gave us, but it seems like there’re more than enough fans who remember and who would love to see the band play together again as they did all those years ago. Granted those fans are much older now, but I wouldn’t discount the possibility of younger listeners getting in on the Oasis hype and fighting for those tickets just as much as us old-timers.