Oasis Live ‘25 Toronto
Emily and I arrived at our hotel around 8 o’clock in the evening to the sound of planes and 97.7 FM, Toronto’s rock station. With the beautiful Niagara Falls in our rear view, the adventure had begun.
Downtown Toronto on a My Chemical Romance, Nine Inch Nails, Oasis weekend was a sight to see on its own. Not to mention their national exposition and some sort of cosplay event, there were characters everywhere. Emily navigated the city like she lived there, and if you can believe it, put up with me the whole time. We did the CN Tower and in the queue met a wonderful couple that was also there for the show. They asked if we had seen them before, I said I saw them with my dad when I was at the University of Toledo and jaws dropped. They live a mile from campus and his name was Justin, I’m not making this up. On the observation floor of CN Tower, Neil Young’s, “Rockin’ in the Free World” was playing.
After the tower, we did a tour on Lake Ontario on a former Amsterdam canal boat. We chatted with the captain who was an actor, and during the only radio portion of the tour, “Wonderwall” came on the speakers. After that, I closed the hotel bar (it closed at 11) with an affable British couple that were my parents age, Leeds United fans, and had Monday tickets. The bartender poured an unknown number of free Molsons for the lads, Oasis was in the air everywhere, Facebook friends were made.
Day of show we went to the pop-up merch shop where we killed two and half hours with five other fans in line that couldn’t have been better. We swapped stories, jokes, favorite songs and pondered upon which live version of, “Slide Away” was the best. The youngest of us was in a Manchester United jersey that he was bravely wearing to the show, so we talked soccer too. I didn’t see a single thread of Toronto FC gear on the entire trip, but just as we were the next people in line, I get a tap on my left shoulder. It was a Columbus Crew fan. We shared a, “Glory to Columbus” back and forth and he was on his way, not looking back in anger.
Then there was the main course, Oasis at the temporary stadium on an old airport runway. It was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Better than, “Goodfellas” or “The Big Lebowski.” Better than Foo Fighters or Weezer or the last time I saw them in 2008. Better than Tiger Woods winning another Masters, or any of Columbus’ three MLS Cups. Cage the Elephant was a good opener who became a great opener when they started to play, “Sweet Home Alabama” then abruptly stopped and the lead singer laughed. The moment it stopped there was silence, Emily instinctively states, “Oh, thank god.” People turned around to smile at us.
As 8:45 drew closer, Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” played just before they came on stage. Thanks, Noel. All the swagger and joy washed over the 50,000 friends I just made. By the time they got through the second song, “Aquiesce” I felt the fees and surcharges were worth that alone, and it just kept going. “Cigarettes and Alcohol” was everything I thought it could be with a crowd that size, facing the wrong way, arms around shoulders singing the opening guitar riff and then jumping like Europeans.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more English, during, “Stand By Me” it started to rain, Liam noted that they have rain in Manchester too. Later, when Noel was prompted by some in the front, exclaimed, “Did you just boo Manchester?” He then proceeded to tell the French in the audience he would see them next Tuesday. The rain was steady but no lightning, and the only way I was leaving the stadium was on a stretcher. Standing there in the rain that soaks you to the bone with the love of your life to hear, “Live Forever” can’t be beat.
The encore of, “The Masterplan”, “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova” is to encores what Ohio State is to five star athletes. They may have the best damn band in the land, but Oasis is the best damn band in the world.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Pinkerton
Weezer frontman Rivers Coumo is not a rock star, despite making some of the best rock music of my lifetime. His existence and overwhelming success is antithetical to the rock and roll lead singer aesthetic of bravado and charisma, and we should all celebrate it. My first concert was Kaiser Chiefs, Weezer and Foo Fighters in 2005, and while they were considered co-headliners, Foo Fighters was the rock show. If you compared Rivers to Dave Grohl that night, it would boggle the mind that they are in the same business. It’s exactly that lack of stage presence that makes Rivers honest, relatable, and authentic because he just couldn’t be bothered to fake it. The beautiful vulnerability expressed on 1996’s Pinkerton is a window into his world, and provides the clever comfort of knowing someone else is out there striking out with girls and feeling disillusioned.
Early reception to Pinkerton was not warm, although it would eventually go on to sell over a million copies in the decades that followed. As the follow up to the wildly successful debut of Weezer (The Blue Album), expectations of another fun pop friendly record were dashed. There wasn’t a, “Buddy Holly” on this album, but that’s not to say it didn’t have some stellar tracks. Artists sing about lost or unrequited love all the time, as they have through millennia, but few get as personal as Rivers gets for 34 minutes on Pinkerton.
The first single, “El Scorcho” finds Rivers pleading through the chorus about how similar he is to the love interest in question, and how they would be great together. Where it really turns up the emo to eleven with the bridge, “How stupid is it? For all I know you want me too, and maybe you just don’t know what to do, and maybe you’re scared to say: ‘I’m falling for you.’” It’s the conversation he’s had in his head for a week making its way into the song without a hint of editing to shield himself from the hurt. As a teenager I was thinking damn, that paralyzing fear that a beautiful woman will put you in exists for him too.
As he mentions at the beginning of, “El Scorcho” Rivers is into half Japanese girls. So how could he not have a song with lyrics that could span the Pacific, “Why are you so far away from me? I need help, and you’re way across the sea, I could never touch you, I think it would be wrong, I’ve got your letter, you’ve got my song.” “Across the Sea” is truly an intercontinental ballistic serenade, however it wasn’t just oceans but orientation that robbed Rivers of love as well. “Pink Triangle” describes him barking up the wrong tree with a lyrical treasure, “When I think I’ve found a good old fashioned girl, then she put me in my place, everyone’s a little queer, can’t she be a little straight?”
The Blue Album this is not. You won’t find pop hits similar to “Island in the Sun” or “Beverly Hills” on this album, but they played five songs from Pinkerton on their blue album 30th anniversary tour and all were highlights with that crowd. It’s also worth noting that this record is like the King James Bible to the emo genre, and while that’s not my cup of tea, you can see the origin story here. It makes you think, it makes you feel. I’m sure people who label themselves ‘alpha male’ everywhere belittle it, which these days is like a cattle prod for a listen.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Nevermind
I would be remiss to love rock music as much as I do, and neglect to include 1991’s Nevermind in this series. The album comes up on every nineties list of best albums of the decade. Nevermind is the grunge genre’s magnum opus. There were a host of good grunge bands in the early nineties but there was only one Nirvana. Lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain was a Beatles fanatic, and his band travel in the same circle of rock lore as the Beatles in that they weren’t around long enough to put out any bad albums. Around long enough to establish greatness and then gone in an instant, like too many in the business, a suicide way before their time.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” is simply an all time great song, and it kicks off this record with overwhelming force. If I’m honest it’s between this and, “Wonderwall” for song of the decade, a yin-yang argument I would gladly have any time. I love playing this song, everybody with a distortion pedal loves playing this song on guitar, but it’s the drums that are the glue. It is worth watching any live version of this song where Dave Grohl is absolutely abusing the drum kit to perfection. Say whatever you want about Foo Fighters, Dave is at home on the drums for this album and it’s where he feasts with godlike ability.
I was one of those people with Nirvana who, “Knows not what it means” to skip any of the songs on this album, but particularly the first three. Teen spirit comes to its conclusion and then you are immediately greeted with some more massive power chords with, “In Bloom.” The dynamic of quiet verse with a loud distorted chorus was perfected by Nirvana early in the decade, and imitated by many. There isn’t a lot there lyrically, but it works and the trio sound great here.
Following those two tracks would be a nightmare unless you are Kurt Cobain, who had, “Come as You Are” up his sleeve. The great guitar line repeats throughout, and includes the immaculate alt-rock apathy line, “Take your time, hurry up, choice is yours don’t be late.” It can be debated whether the song is about heroin, but it doesn’t matter, it’s just a great song. So much so that it was added to the welcome sign in Kurt’s hometown, it reads, “Aberdeen, Washington Come As You Are.” It’s so sad to think about the music we didn’t get from him, but this is what I call a proper memorial.
Before he retired, my father was a guidance counselor, and thinking about Nirvana and Kurt Cobain always reminds me of how he first came to know their impact. The day after news circulated that Cobain had passed, a student came into his office beside themselves in grief. He was busy raising my brother and I, so forgive him for not being up on grunge back then, but their musical impact on people was clear. The reach of their music was far and wide, harnessing the melodic and the chaotic with equal brilliance.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Definitely Maybe
People love one hit wonders, but they always leave you wanting more. People don’t like it as much when a band debuts with a thermonuclear explosion like Oasis did with Definitely Maybe, and the cynical would say it’s all downhill from there. Whatever you want to say about it the follow up, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory and its massive hits, you can’t say it was a step down in quality. Oasis led by songwriter Noel Gallagher were shot out of a cannon in 1994, from there it wasn’t downhill, but no looking back.
Freshly acquired from the Sony BMG music club when I was a Junior in high school, my neck snapped toward my cd player where I would find the track number 3, and that’s the first time I remember hearing, “Live Forever.” It would become, and remains, my favorite song. It has everything you could want in a Noel Gallagher classic, from the lyrics, “Maybe you’re the same as me, we see things they’ll never see, you and I are gonna live forever” to the used before, but never this well, chord progression and finally two simple but respectable guitar solos, timeless.
Written and recorded in a single night in Liverpool, “Supersonic” is the single we all wish we wrote. Noel once described that he wrote the song in about a half hour, they ordered Chinese take out and by the time everyone had eaten it, the recording was finished. “I need to be myself, I can’t be no one else” is the only ethos you need to take from this album if you don’t find three others sprinkled among the eleven tracks. On one of their live releases, Liam is heard heckling Noel to, “Write a coupla’ more of theses babies.” I’m sure he would if it were that easy. When you’re the brother who got all the talent, sometimes you write a hit in 30 minutes that Liam could only dream of, and the rest of the time you have to put up with him singing it.
If you catch me on the right day, I will tell you that, “Slide Away” is the best Oasis song, and the best song Noel Gallagher has ever written. If you catch me in a sour mood I will tell you it’s in the top five, and you should get your head examined if you don’t think Noel Gallagher is the best songwriter of my lifetime. Written during one of the numerous Definitely Maybe recording sessions, its origin story is the stuff of legend. Noel reached out to his friend and guitarist of The Smiths, Johnny Marr with a request for more guitars for the record. One of the guitars Marr sent was on old Les Paul that Noel took to his room for the night where he claimed, “The song wrote itself.” It is said to be written about Noel’s soulmate, a relationship that ended when they had to go on tour. You can hear what he lost, “Slide away, and give it all you’ve got, my today, fell in from the top, I dream of you and all the things you say, I wonder where you are now.”
I didn’t have a chance to get to how great the stolen riff is on, “Cigarettes and Alcohol“ or the fact that it kicks off with the huevos of, “Rock’n’Roll Star” or the magical jam session that is, “Columbia.” Noel is the only autograph I ever kept, the reason I learned guitar, the best show I’ve ever been to with my dad. Buy me a drink and I’ll sing you a song, it will probably be Oasis. Probably from this album, possibly you’ll like it. No, Definitely…Maybe.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Californication
There is no official ambassador honor for the state of California, but perhaps they should give the title to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There are no more prolific propagandists of dreams of a California lifestyle than them, stitched into the fabric of the culture. It’s debatable if this is their best album, they are a great band, but Californication hit hard for me in 1999 and I wasn’t alone. The record spawned six singles, and went on to sell over fifteen million copies worldwide, for a more modern take, three of the band’s top five most streamed songs on Spotify.
Californication marked the return of guitarist John Frusciante to the band, and his presence is felt throughout. His beautiful almost weeping clean guitar forms the framework of, “Scar Tissue” a single that can hook you within the first 15 seconds of the song starting. It features a mellow and lovable chorus, “With the birds I’ll share this lonely viewin’” and the hilarious verse, “Soft spoken with a broken jaw, step outside but not to brawl, autumn’s sweet we call it fall.” The bigger hits on this album are so easy to love.
The next track hits pretty hard in succession, “Otherside” features great storytelling about the pitfalls of confronting addiction. It’s dark in places, musically strong, and features this great opening verse, “I heard your voice through a photograph, I thought it up and brought up the past, once you know you can never go back, I gotta take it on the otherside.” The song is reflective and accessible enough that it doesn’t force the subject matter on a casual listener too heavily, it was a single after all.
The title track simply leaves nothing to be desired, five and a half minutes of Red Hot Chili Peppers bliss. If you catch the music video, it features the latest in what video games looked like at the turn of the millennium. The lyrics speak to the overwhelming cultural force that California is to our society and the world, and the possibilities that are only there beyond the superficial. “Space may be the final frontier, but it’s made in a Hollywood basement. And Cobain can you hear the spheres singing songs off station to station?” All of this comes to a head with Frusciante’s almost too perfect guitar solo, it silences whatever noise is going on in my head every time I hear it, at least for a moment.
I also want to give compliments to Lawrence Azerrad, know for his Pink Floyd album covers for the art, this cd begged to be picked up off the shelf even if you didn’t know the band. I remember the joy of buying this CD at the Ft. Wayne Best Buy back in jr. high, and that, ladies and gentleman, is an old sounding sentence. It can be argued as to whether this is the best Chili Peppers album, there are at least two others you could make a case for. In the end, this is the one that has, “Californication” on it, so all other arguments are probably moot.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: The Bends
I once suggested to an old friend in college that Radiohead, specifically The Bends and OK Computer, was the best music for studying. I was overjoyed a few weeks later when he texted back in agreement from his campus a hundred miles away. Radiohead is a bit difficult to pin down or describe in a sound bite, so most people don’t get it. Everybody knows, “I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here?” but it’s only a music lover who gets to call themselves a Radiohead fan.
While the single, “Creep” from their debut album Pablo Honey will always be their most famous song, in music circles you will get somewhere around four different answers for best album, and none of them are Pablo Honey. 1995’s Radiohead masterpiece The Bends represents a more matured sound that separated them from the crowd of loud rock bands of the era. They weren’t Brit-pop and they weren’t grunge, however they were fantastic. This would be proven out over the aforementioned releases that followed such as OK Computer, Kid A, and In Rainbows.
The first single from the album was picked for the fans, and lacked commercial radio appeal. “My Iron Lung” can be interpreted as the band loathing the success of, “Creep” but that’s not to say the album didn’t have viable mass appeal. The album sold over two million copies worldwide by the end of 1996 on the strength of the band’s top to bottom talent. Lead singer Thom Yorke really shines on the dystopian love song, “Fake Plastic Trees” as well as providing soaring vocals throughout the rest of the album.
Haunting is the first word that comes to mind for album ending track, “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” from start to finish awash in beautiful anxiety. The guitar line that repeats throughout creates the texture for the equally stressed lyrics, “This machine will, will not communicate these thoughts and the strain I am under.” It would go on the become Radiohead’s first top five on the UK singles charts, dissuading the notion of the band being a one hit wonder. The song’s fixture at the end is a wonderful cleansing release to this album of guitar panic.
Radiohead are in the pantheon of the great bands of all time, but the music is not for everyone. There aren’t sing-along songs, and one wouldn’t be advised to put on Radiohead at the bar jukebox. The Bends is my favorite Radiohead album because it is more guitar focused than the others I mentioned and listening to it is a meditative experience. The quality is there from start to finish, and if you compare it to bubble gum pop nonsense, this is New York strip versus Skittles.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: The Colour and the Shape
I’ll never make it to heaven, but if good old St. Pete told me my entrance was contingent upon naming the best rock’n’roll band of my lifetime, it’s Foo Fighters without hesitation. Born from the ashes of Nirvana as the solo project of drummer Dave Grohl there just isn’t another band from 1987 to now that’s both qualitatively and quantifiably massive. This 1997 sophomore effort from Dave was a step away from the grunge era that defined him, toward the more melodic and accessible rock sound they are now known for.
The Colour and the Shape may represent their best album, but I’ll gladly debate you aimlessly until three in the morning because they have two others that are just as good. After the introductory first track, “Monkey Wrench” kicks your front teeth in with a blistering pace of 174 beats per minute. Dave belts out his frustrations over distorted guitars, “Adolescent resident, wasting another night on planning my revenge” and it is so visceral it almost bleeds.
Infamously, Grohl recorded his own drum tracks for nearly the entire album unbeknownst to the drummer in the band. William Goldsmith rightfully didn’t take it well, and the result was him leaving the group, but the rest of us getting the masterclass of Dave on the throne. I can’t imagine, “My Hero” opening with any other drum intro, and I often find myself trying to isolate what the drums are doing on this album, which is something I rarely do as a failed guitarist.
“And I wonder when I sing along with you, if everything could ever feel this real forever.” ‘“Everlong” is’…Frankly, a very difficult sentence to finish. There is the guitar in drop D tuning to maximal effect in the intro, the drums at a pace only Taylor Hawkins could later come close to replicating, everything on this track is turned up to 11. It builds into one of best songs of the decade, and with over a billion streams on Spotify this is the signature Foo Fighters song for the ages.
It’s a really special moment when someone turns exceptional talent and tragedy into something millions can enjoy forever, that is Dave Grohl with Foo Fighters. More specifically, this album was him taking everything he can do musically and putting it on a canvas. There is a level of polish on this record that would serve as the blueprint for most of the rest of the band’s existence in the spotlight. Dave Grohl is a hero in my book, though I wouldn’t say ordinary.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Odelay
There are certainly sounds on this 1996 classic I hadn’t heard put together before, like turntables and harmonicas. Synthesizers abound and there is a groove a minute. It kicks off with that sacrilegious guitar riff about the devil and never looks back. I feel like I could end it there and it would be enough justification for you to listen to the album if you haven’t already. Beck invites us to his fifth studio album Odelay with, “Devil’s Haircut” and the journey is better than any need for a destination.
Odelay ranks at #306 on Rolling Stone’s top 500 Albums list and has sold 2.3 million copies in the United States, solidifying Beck’s presence on the music scene. I don’t think I’ve ever changed the radio station when the electric piano kicks in on “Where It’s At” and signals five minutes where I can just sway and relax. I haven’t seen Beck live, but I can always get behind the anthemic chorus lyric, “Where it’s at, I’ve got two turn tables and a microphone.” I am always down for that kind of an amateur show in my head.
“Lord Only Knows” gets back into a more traditional acoustic arrangement echoing a bit from 1994’s Mellow Gold that included the breakout hit, “Loser” and received substantial airplay, peaking the album at #13 on the Billboard charts. Beck’s folk background shines on this one with his lovably apathetic finish to the warm chorus, “So don’t, you hesitate to give yourself a call, letcha’ bottom dollars fall, throwin’ your two-bit cares down the drain.”
I’ve always thought that “The New Pollution” would sound perfect in an Austin Powers movie, the driving bluesy British groove hooks you almost immediately. It’s like you can see a cool-looking James Bond caricature moving in slow motion, suavely doing secret agent moves in a montage that will eventually end up coming together with impeccable timing. It also starts with the great line, “She’s got a cigarette on each arm” setting you up for the toxic landscape that she exists in.
In a word, this album has relentless flow. Beck makes some interesting choices and takes some chances, like opening, “Lord Only Knows” with an unintelligible scream, seemingly unrelated to the rest of the song. This derailed an early listen for a friend of mine when I first started loving this album, but they always come around. The listener is introduced to something new with each passing minute on this one, and almost all of it works to perfection. This is one to tune out the world to, it sounds just as great as it used to, and I might need to find a sixer of that, “jigsaw jazz” he mentioned and have another listen.
It’s a Wonderful life of Albums: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? is a four course album prepared by master chef Noel Gallagher and served to you whether you like it or not by his brother Liam. From the opening chords of, “Hello” to the waves on the beach that introduce, “Champagne Supernova” this album renders the next button obsolete. Ranked #378 on Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums list and selling over 22 million copies worldwide, Morning Glory is a British rock behemoth.
The sibling rivalry and MTV Unplugged heckling incident overshadowed two Billboard Alternative #1 hits in the United States, but who could forget the songs? “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova” took the band to another level in terms of worldwide success, on top of the #1 UK singles, “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Some Might Say.” It’s anecdotal, but a friend once told me they met a street musician in Mexico who learned English so they could play, “Wonderwall.”
This sounds entirely plausible to me, because everyone I knew who had an acoustic guitar learned this song at some point. The cynic in me wants to address that cliche and my disdain for it, but in my heart I know that it was just too irresistible to learn the love song of the decade. “I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now” hits you like a Mike Tyson opening salvo in a song with an acoustic arrangement that is more recognizable than the band itself. Noel Gallagher stopped owning this one as soon as the ink left his pen, it belongs to humanity.
With, “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Champagne Supernova” you have two of the most enjoyable sing-along songs of my lifetime. I was lucky enough to have a group of friends that cooperated in forming an Oasis singing circle during late nights in college, and how could you not? The nonsensical chorus of, “Don’t Look Back in Anger” is often what Noel chooses to close with, for good reason, the crowd is always with him. As for, “Champagne Supernova” I don’t care if you’ve never done a drug in your whole life, we still wanna know, “Where were you while we were getting high?”
In December of 2008 I saw Oasis in Detroit with my dad, and it will be a lifelong memory. The band split up the following summer, and for over a decade most thought they would never tour again. Last year however they announced a 2025 reunion world tour, I should have known. I say that because my dad likes to tell the story of seeing The Rolling Stones on their, “last tour” in 1981. Since The Rolling Stones tour from last year was one of the most lucrative, it gives me hope for Oasis. This is because I know Noel and Liam still have something other than a mother in common: it’s the tunes, man.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Make Yourself
Whatever tomorrow brings, I will always love this album. Incubus broke into the mainstream with their second studio album Make Yourself, which I find most interesting because of the albums that came before and after. It was recorded after a tour in support of their debut, S.C.I.E.N.C.E. and marks a transition between that harder sound featured at Ozzfest to the surf rock ambiance of Morning View. It’s also a 1990s alternative rock classic with three tent-pole singles that make the speaker dance.
On paper, Incubus makes no sense. The construction of the band was not in the mold of many groups at the time in several ways. They are an alt-rock band with a DJ, people used to talk down on them for that in some music circles but it never bothered me. Gen-Z listeners might see old videos of him on stage and think, what a pioneer, look at him playing the laptop acoustically! In addition, they only had one guitarist for all these loud, wall of sound choruses: Mike Einziger. The man has never met an effect pedal he didn’t like, and you will hear some unfamiliar sounds on Incubus albums, queued by his right foot stomping.
While the previous album was successful in its own right, this one had, “Drive” on it. A song that should be on any nineties playlist worth its salt, and a big part of why the fan base for the band became divided. They definitely went in a more radio friendly direction with this album, but I would never use the term, “sell-out.” The album sold over two million copies, and it wasn’t because they were, to quote Office Space from the same year, “No talent ass-clowns.” You certainly can’t say that about the lyrics of the song or Brandon Boyd’s vocals, I don’t want to imagine anyone else singing it.
As for the other two singles, “Pardon Me” sounds great whether they play it in an acoustic or electric arrangement, from the opening phaser guitar to the line, “I’ve had enough of the world and it’s peoples’ mindless games.” In sticking with that transition theme of the album, “Stellar” is a bit quieter and more melodic. The louder chorus repeatedly insists loving disbelief, “How do you do it? Make me feel like I do.” Boyd’s voice really shines on this one, something the band leaned into throughout their career.
While there is some immaturity in this sophomore effort, it doesn’t detract from a great set of songs. Incubus has adapted their sound over their decades as a group, and this record was the one that paved the way for a lot of great music that came after. The mistake people make with Incubus is trying to figure out what to label them as, so just don’t. Enjoy Incubus for all the joyful noise they make on this one, with open arms and open ears.
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