When Oasis announced their reunion and accompanying 2025 tour, the running jokes practically wrote themselves. Some lauded whatever miracle-worker had convinced Liam and Noel Gallagher to share a stage again, wondering why that savant wasn’t brokering peace in the Middle East. Others doubted the brothers’ ceasefire would survive even until the first show in Cardiff, Wales.
I was among the 50,000 fans who packed into Toronto’s Rogers Stadium for Oasis’s first North American date. (The other local gag was whether the venue itself, still an empty lot when the tour was announced, would exist in time or join the city’s pantheon of never-ending construction projects. Liam Gallagher wasted no time in poking fun at the hastily assembled venue, jesting, “It’s nice to be in Legoland.”)
After a four-hour wait in the general admission pit, surrounded by fans spanning generations and geographies, I can report without hesitation: Oasis’s comeback is real, and they have never sounded better. This was easily among the best concerts I have ever seen.
The show opened with a montage of news headlines and social media posts about the reunion flashing across the giant screen, set to the instrumental “F***in’ in the Bushes.” Then Liam Gallagher emerged in his signature Stone Island jacket, leaning into the mic with his chin jutted forward, hands clasped behind his back — the pugilistic stance that has long defined his stage presence.
As the band tore into “Hello,” his voice sounded almost indistinguishable from their heyday in the mid-‘90s. From the opening bar — “I don’t feel as if I know you” — the crowd erupted, thousands pogoing and singing every lyric in unison. By the time he repeated the outro line, “it’s good to be back,” the sentiment was manifestly mutual.
U2’s Bono once called Noel Gallagher the “greatest tunesmith since Paul McCartney,” and listening to the litany of beloved hits that filled the setlist, even with omissions such as “Columbia” and “She’s Electric,” it is easy to see why. Early in the show came “Acquiesce,” an up-tempo B-side and strong contender for their best song. Noel’s thunderous A-minor riff set the stage for a passionate duet with Liam: “Because we need each other / We believe in one another.” It was sincere, convincing, and engrossing — a reminder of what made the Gallaghers such a combustible but magnetic pairing.
As legendary rock frontmen go, Liam doesn’t strut across the stage like Mick Jagger — he plants himself at the mic, occasionally with a tambourine in hand, chin thrust forward, exuding a sneering attitude. Whether he’s galloping through the beat of “D’You Know What I Mean?” or belting the chorus of “Stand by Me” with raw, clenched force, his inimitable stage presence is hypnotic and captivating.
Noel, armed with his signature Gibson ES-335, was equally commanding. He effortlessly glided through melodic solos on “Live Forever” and “Champagne Supernova,” each one nailed with precision. Liam may be the entertaining frontman, but Noel is Oasis’s musical core. His vocal turns were among the night’s highlights too — sharp and resonant on “Little by Little,” and swelling into his signature anthem “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” which could have served as a finale in its own right.
As at any rock concert, the crowd’s energy was as much a part of the show as the band onstage. Oasis has long had a reputation for being stubbornly British — beloved at home but never fully naturalizing in America. I got my first taste of that devotion last fall in a Dublin pub, when a local cover artist strummed the opening C chord of “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” Instantly, the entire pub rose to its feet and belted every lyric in unison. In Toronto, the same fervor was unmistakable. During “Morning Glory,” the crowd even sang over the guitar riff itself. If this was a preview of the rest of the North American tour, Oasis-mania has truly arrived.
A serendipitous highlight came midway through the set when rain began to fall. “All that sunshine. Not good for you,” Liam quipped, before launching into “Live Forever” and belting, “Lately did you ever feel the pain / In the morning rain / As it soaks you to the bone?” His falsetto soared beautifully on “You and I are gonna live forever,” and in that moment, as the rain continued to pelt the outdoor arena, the ethos of Oasis — their unapologetic celebration of life and unabashed embrace of the rockstar persona, a vivid rejoinder to the “too cool for school” gloom and despondence of ‘90s grunge — was palpable and infectious.
HOW THE TALKING HEADS REVIVAL FITS THE TRUMP ERA
Oasis’s two-hour performance was appreciably bereft of any storied Gallagher antics, self-sabotage, or walk-offs. The Manchester-born brothers were once again playing as if they were young musicians eager to make their mark. For all the cynicism about their motives for reuniting under the Oasis banner, financial or artistic, the truth is likely both. But standing in that stadium, surrounded by 50,000 fans screaming along to “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” and seeing Noel and Liam’s gleaming smiles in response, it hardly mattered.
Oasis is, in all likelihood, the last truly seismic rock reunion tour we’ll see in our lifetimes. The only other contender might be Led Zeppelin, but Robert Plant has spent decades swatting away even the faintest whiff of a reunion. As Liam closed with “Champagne Supernova,” asking, “Where were you while we were gettin’ high?” the nostalgia was undeniable — but not only for our own youth. It was for a broader era of rock itself, when musicians wrote and performed melodies that could move millions. For a night, we all got to feel like we were rock ’n’ roll stars.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a software engineer, holds a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at BetweenBottles.com.