The Gallagher brothers stepped onto the stage in their hometown of Manchester, knowing all 80,000 of us wanted the same thing. It had been 16 years since Oasis had performed together—even longer since the brothers had anything more than a tense professional relationship—and everyone gathered there was hoping their notoriously volatile dynamic could hold together for the duration of this show.
They opened with “Hello,” the lead track off their second album, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? The brothers stared out into the enormous sea of people wearing bucket hats and Adidas shoes, and simultaneously sang the song’s final lines: “Hello, hello. It’s good to be back, it’s good to be back.”
It was a statement from Liam and Noel, a promise to Oasis fans who had spent well over a decade hoping the siblings could put aside their differences, and it provoked perhaps the biggest simultaneous expression of joy and relief I’ve experienced with a crowd. It was also the first of many reminders that while Liam may get more attention, none of this happens without Noel.
Oasis’s songs are Noel’s songs. It was Noel’s decision to turn his debaucherous little brother into an all-time frontman. It was Noel’s decision to break up the band. It was Noel who acquiesced to a reunion when his 25-year-old daughter, Anaïs, told him it was time.
Liam remains the star of this whole circus, but the highlight of the reunion show was when Noel led the crowd into the moment I knew was coming, but that still managed to surprise me with its power.
“You know what this song means to us all,” Noel said before launching into “Don’t Look Back In Anger.” “Feel free to join in.”
Everybody did—there was no other choice. It was, somehow, an intimate experience between 80,000 people. Once again, Noel was performing a song that took on a new salience in light of the reunion, and the defensive posture he had maintained for so many years fell away before our eyes.
There's a long history of Noel having to pick up slack for Liam, but on this tour he is finally able to be as cool as his brother. As my friends and I shuffled out of the muddy park, we realized we’d individually come to the same takeaway: "I was too hard on Noel."
“I was locked in on Noel, honestly,” said a friend who later saw them play in Toronto. “Liam too, but man—the horsepower of that band really is NG.”
The differences between the Gallagher brothers have long benefitted Liam over Noel. Liam is the one attacking the microphone, infusing his tantrums and tirades with humor and intensity. He spent years making fun of Noel on Twitter, and on various television and radio programs. He’s taken shots at Noel’s height—Liam is the taller brother by one inch—responding to the question of what he would do if he woke up as Noel with: “I’d scream… Somebody pass me the step ladders as I can’t reach the cornflakes on the table and I’m starving.” He has called Liam “tofu boi” and a “miserable arse… billionaire.” He regularly posted photos of Noel, sometimes captioning them, simply, “potato.”
Liam is the wild ride. He is the beautiful man-child who has held onto his Mancunian demeanor, parka, and bucket hat costume, and exudes an indescribable form of being cool. He is the one whose drug-fueled antics helped build the lore of chaos that Oasis rode to the top (and then crashed into the ground). He is, in all respects, the incorrigible little brother.
Where Liam seems mad in both senses of the word, Noel comes across as merely angry, calling critics of his solo work “parka monkeys” and claiming that an Oasis reunion would “kill him as a person.” In 2013, he told Rolling Stone, “It’s like, if you’ve seen [Oasis], then good for you. If you didn’t, then that’s fucking tough shit. I’ve never seen the Beatles. So there you go.”
Noel reiterated versions of this sentiment for over a decade, criticizing fans for being too attached to nostalgia and telling them to move on. It’s been easy for me to champion Liam and join him in belittling Noel because, despite his many flaws, he is a lunatic goofball and has never downplayed his love of Oasis.
But any reading of Noel as a begrudging member of the reunited Oasis is blown apart while he’s on stage during these Live ‘25 shows. Admittedly, he has always made a face that looks like he is slightly in pain while singing into the microphone, but he is undeniably happy to be there, performing the songs he wrote—the ones that came before it all started to fall apart—to an audience that knows every word.
While Liam has been re-establishing himself as one of the most ferocious frontmen of all time on this tour, Noel has let his passion back out of the cage. He’s allowed himself to reconnect with his fanbase.
It’s not just Noel’s beloved ballad that showcases his sincerity, though. The setlist is structured to give Liam vocal breaks so he can receive intense treatment backstage. It’s been roughly 25 years since Liam’s voice began breaking down due to a mix of health problems and hard living. His waning ability to perform Oasis’s best songs in the 2000s was a potent factor in the band’s decline.
There’s even more at stake now. The expectations of a reunion tour are high. When it was first announced—an event I’d hoped for so badly that I had push notifications on for Liam’s tweets—my immediate feeling wasn’t elation but fear. I didn’t want all of my anticipation to lead to a letdown. But when my friends pulled off a coup and got tickets to see them in Manchester, I booked a flight without any further thought.
The draw was seeing the brothers together, but in the middle of the show, Liam leaves Noel alone on stage. Noel has to command the audience for roughly 20 minutes, playing three songs—two of which are from the lesser-known later albums. He is the stellar songwriter. But for the last 30 years, he’s been getting mistaken for Liam in public, watching the fans’ faces fall into disappointment or confusion when he clarifies that he is the other one.
His performance was mesmerizing. The difference between watching Liam perform a song written by Noel and watching Noel perform a song written by Noel is stark. Noel’s best decision as an artist was to assign his words to his brother—his second-best decision was to claim “Don’t Look Back In Anger” instead of “Wonderwall”—but the songs become intensely personal when Noel performs them himself. Noel brings an earnestness that contrasts Liam’s viciousness.
Then, for the rest of the show, Noel held his place as the backup vocalist. The man who seemed so bitter and selfish throughout the band’s long hiatus reminded us that he has only ever wanted Oasis to be the most spectacular band in the world. That means sometimes giving Liam the platform that makes Noel “the other one.” It means turning 52 years of fraternal tension into a professional relationship again. It means joining him to sing, “It’s good to be back, it’s good to be back” and having it ring true. While wearing my beloved pink “LIAM GALLAGHER” bucket hat, I texted a friend that I was Noel-pilled. “I never thought I’d hear you say that,” he replied.
Noel was the last one to leave the stage. He was the last thing the crowd saw before stumbling home in ruined Sambas. He had been adamant that this reunion would never happen. On that stage, he looked like he didn’t want it to end.
