I was present of the biggest rifts in rock’n’roll history when I went to Paris for a music festival 17 years ago.
It was 2009, and I was at the Rock En Seine festival in the city for the weekend when Oasis split up – Liam and Noel Gallagher had a huge fight backstage and the band were no more. The sibling rivalry had finally spilled over to the point where they could no longer stand to be in the same room.
It would take 15 long years before the pair would reconcile to announce their returning 2025 Live ’25 World Tour, an event of fever-pitch euphoria and an outpouring of love and release, that is the foundation of this new Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger film – written by Steven Knight- a mostly live document of what went down on the tour last year across the world, interspersed with Noel and Liam talking about the reunion and the tour.
We’ll always not have Paris
We don’t find out exactly why the pair fell out in Paris in the film, but it hardly matters – the band had been imploding with brotherly tension for a long time at that point (for what it’s worth the last straw rumour has long been that Liam smashed Noel’s custom guitar). What is absolutely fascinating is how these two estranged brothers – inextricably linked through both family and rock’n’roll heritage were going to be able to stand the sight of each other for long enough to go on tour again.
He’s making out as if I’ve stabbed one of his cats,” Liam says of the original fight. “Leave it out mate, we had a little argument.”
The film takes us inside the Oasis rehearsals
The film’s opening rehearsal footage of the band getting back together to play songs in advance of the tour is rife with tension. Captured across six weeks through hidden cameras, at first, Noel leads the rest of the band – Andy Bell, Gem Archer, Joey Waronker and the returning guitarist Bonehead (looking a bit Ringo) as they reconvene in an anonymous warehouse to lay the groundwork – there’s a quiet anxiety in the air.
By the time the elephant in the room shows up, the very first thing that Liam says when he comes in is to get rid of the shields around the drum kit because “they’re giving me the hump”, and then he promptly steps up to the mic and rips into ‘Columbia’ sounding better than he ever did, and yet abruptly walks out of the building to go home at the end of ‘Champagne Supernova’ before the song has actually finished. Liam is prepared (one of the documentary’s revelations is that Liam doesn’t drink or smoke anymore for the sake of his voice on the tour) but in the first meetings – strictly business.
It takes a lot of caring to not give this much of a fuck,” is how Liam memorably puts in.
When combined with Noel’s admission in the film – “I was born with one fatal flaw in my character – I cannot forgive people”, well it’s a monumental wonder that the tour even went ahead at all, never mind that it looks like they are going out again next year.
How Liam and Noel Gallagher rebuilt their relationship
Liam and Noel don’t have some huge reconciliation moment ahead of the tour, instead, their relationship grows throughout the tour from tolerating each other to a grudging respect for each other as individuals and musicians. These are two brothers whose disagreement meant they didn’t talk for 15 years and their kids didn’t meet until this tour, and the Live ’25 tour offers a real water-under-the-bridge moment for their relationship.
As both experience the enormity of what Oasis means to other people at these live gigs (Noel admitting he wasn’t prepared for the high emotion he was met with and couldn’t remember the first 40 minutes of the first Cardiff gig is borne out in the footage of him looking stunned) the grievances of the past fall away and they become friendly (they now text each other videos like two real dads).
The exclusive version of the film on Disney+ features never-before-seen footage that includes more of the joint interview with Liam and Noel Gallagher, along with full performances of ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Slide Away’. ‘D’You Know What I Mean?’ and ‘Half The World Away’ will feature for the first time and be available exclusively to Disney+ customers.
By the time Noel says he describes Liam as something he would have never attributed to him – “delightful”, it’s clear the pair are left things unsaid but have gotten past it – Liam repeatedly shows appreciation for Noel’s songwriting talents, and Noel says Liam looks cool wearing a tambourine on his head where he would look like a twat – the true rock’n’roll showman he is and displays throughout the film’s performances.
There’s a beautiful familial emotion to their relationship as it mends without saying too much to each other, and as Liam lifts Noel’s hand in the air in celebration at the start of the Cardiff gig and on subsequent gigs – it’s clear Liam is more comfortable showing affection to Noel, who by contrast is more reserved.
Both Liam and Noel are also of course, very funny, endlessly quotable and by the time they sit down for their first joint interview in 25 years, there’s a palpable buzz in there air between them – there’s a hilarious quip from Liam about Mick Jagger’s dance moves, and the pair reflecting on staying up late after gigs which Liam has a funny and insightful view of.
The Live ’25 concert footage is extraordinary
The majority of the Disney+ film is focused on the live concert aspect – beautifully captured in intimate widescreen vibrancy by directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern (Shut Up and Play the Hits, Meet Me in the Bathroom) throughout 13 select dates including Cardiff, Manchester, Dublin, Buenos Aires, Sao Paolo and Mexico City. The live footage is full of raw powerful physical energy – the crowd always in the lens and as much part of the experience as the band. It looks and sounds incredible too with a team that includes sound design by The Zone of Interest Oscar winner Tarn Willers and The Brutalist cinematographer Lol Crawley.
The narrative on each stop on the tour is framed around the personal story of one fan who will finally become part of the Oasis tribe when they attend a show in their city which lend the personal fan touch.
Oasis in Dublin: Croke Park, The Auld Triangle and the Cobblestone
But the mass singalongs and tidal of outpouring of love for these songs, and this band is what sticks – and the filmmakers, reflecting what Noel says the democratic appeal of Oasis, rightly include those without a ticket – outside the stadiums and parks.
In Dublin, the gathering of people singing on the street outside Croker is as moving as The Aul Triangle sung by fans inside the stadium before the gig (and underscores the Gallaghers’ Irish connection – further highlighted by Tomás Mulligan’s performance of it in the Cobblestone as featured in the film) and elsewhere the gathering of fans without tickets on a hill in Heaton Park in Manchester is an inclusive part of the film for those fans who didn’t get a ticket.
What the film leaves out
Just don’t expect any reference to the tiered ticket price debacle around the Live 25 Tour, other than Liam at one point leading the Poznan, rather hilariously telling people to turn around to those in the cheap seats – “actually there are no cheap seats, sorry about that.”
Liam and Noel’s relationship could have done with its own film but the truth seems to be this is a relationship in active repair so while they became increasingly friendly over the tour, there wasn’t any real hanging out to draw from – backstage or otherwise – so I don’t think this is a case of sanitising what actually happened – these are two Manchester brothers who don’t communicate with open arms and never have. So we don’t get any big hugging it out “I forgive you” moment, but that’s not really how life is. Their relationship is still in repair.
Verdict: is Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger worth watching?
The takeaways from seeing the uplifting Don’t Look Back In Anger film then, are the unwavering feverish passion of the fans across the generations and continents, the live gigs as captured is some of the electric concert footage you’ll ever see. And, while it took 15 years, healed through time, it’s great to have the Gallagher brothers back together again – you could listen to them talk for hours.
Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger is one of the most alive tour concert films you’ll ever see.
Check out the documentary exclusively on Disney+ from October 9th.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
