Until the extraordinary outpouring of joy that greeted their blockbuster 2025 reunion tour, it was easy to take the impact of Oasis for granted. Noel and Liam Gallagher’s vital, working-class band sing huge, anthemic songs about living forever, being
free and believing in each other. They were arguably the last British band that really mattered, even if their best work was made in the mid 1990s.
With Don’t Look Back in Anger directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern – along with curiously credited creator/writer Steven Knight – have delivered a momentous, emotionally charged concert documentary which doesn’t contain revelations but showcases exactly why they mean so much to so many.
Having set out the band’s history with news archive and fan footage, from having the fastest-selling debut album in British history with Definitely Maybe in 1994 to the disaster of their Paris pre-gig split some 15 years later, we’re given quietly revealing access to the reunion rehearsals.
Over a six-week period we see Noel precisely organize the band, sharpening the arrangements of his songs while Liam brings his deathless punky energy to each snarled word. It would have been a great film even if we’d just had two hours of the band playing to no-one.
The meat of the piece is, of course, music from the gigs in Europe, North America and South America. Fans rapturously receive ‘Hello’ when it opens the tour in Cardiff, ‘Bring It On Down’ brings the house down in Seoul, while ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ provokes a Wembley singalong for the ages.
Lovelace and Southern, who made early noughties NYC indie scene doc Meet Me in the Bathroom, capture the band and their weeping, dancing and cheering fans with genuine love and care, each song truncated but tied in with interview clips with a fan, Noel or Liam. There’s even typically hilarious clips of the brothers’ first joint interview since they reunited and one serious moment where Noel passionate declares that the band are for everyone, not the right-wing.
A woman who named her dog Bonehead after the band’s guitarist and only other surviving original member is a particular delight, while Noel pays tribute to the man himself. ‘Live Forever’ is even more affecting than usual in Sao Paulo, where Liam dedicates it to Stone Roses legend Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield after his death.
In a fitting reminder of the band’s love of football and Manchester City, Liam demanding crowds turn their backs on the band to do the Poznań for ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ (the Poznań was invented on the terraces of Polish team Lech Poznań but popularised by fans of Manchester City among others). This is amusingly reinforced by the life-size cardboard cutout of Gallagher brothers hero and then-City manager Pep Guardiola adorning the stage each night.
This documentary does not reinvent the form. But those who’ve experienced it will find themselves happy, positive and with a newly energized swagger after seeing it, just like one feels after listening to the best Oasis songs.
This story originally published on Rolling Stone UK.
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