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: 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: (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.
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