Oasis tried to break the US but it broke them -- will it be second time lucky? (article from the UK's Times)

[highplainsdem]

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/music/article/oasis-and-the-great-american-gamble-kvpnjg7ms

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In September 1994 Noel left Oasis after a gig at Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles — a story told in detail in the book A Sound So Very Loud, by Hamish MacBain and Ted Kessler, which looks at every Oasis song. In brief, the Gallaghers had been snorting crystal meth, thinking it was cocaine. The drug had strong effects, the band having to start their opener twice and often sounding as if each member was playing a different song. Liam threw a tambourine that hit Noel on the head; Noel fled to San Francisco to find a girl called Melissa, and it was not until two weeks later that he was back in the band.

The events of that disaster are told in the ballad Talk Tonight, but it was far from the only American nightmare for the band. In 1996 Liam failed to turn up to an arena gig because he said he had laryngitis and had to house hunt with the actress Patsy Kensit. “That killed us stone dead in America,” Noel said. “We never recovered.”

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Which is the crux, really. In Oasis’s gobby wild youth, America was the corporate slog that those working-class lads felt allergic to. Now, though, they are older and incredibly corporate — a money-making behemoth signed up to brand deals with Amazon, Levi’s and Urban Outfitters. They are playing the game — not saying things, as Liam once did, such as: “American journalists are wankers.” On Spotify Wonderwall has become the third most-played track from the 1990s.

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Fast-forward to 2025 and all of Oasis’s five dates in the US are in stadiums. It turns out they are now pretty popular. All of their shows sold out in an hour. The two Californian dates at the Rose Bowl, Pasadena, near Los Angeles, will be to a combined 180,000 revellers. It is questionable if the Gallaghers had that number of fans in the entire US in the 1990s. Now they are filling up the same stadiums that have played host to Beyoncé and Taylor Swift (they have been advised to stay out of American politics — having criticised Trump — to avoid trouble with their visas).

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I'm hoping their concerts here are just as much a success as they've been so far on this reunion tour.

The Times is really underestimating how many US fans they have, since their second album - 1995's (What's the Story) Morning Glory? - not only was in the Top 10 but went 4x platinum here, with over 2 million copies sold in the US.

Whether Liam and Noel Gallagher will steer completely clear of politics remains to be seen. As I posted yesterday, they're fans of Neil Young, who's been very outspoken. I'd love to hear what they think of what Trump's been doing. I don't think Trump would dare do much more than post another stupid message on Truth Social, as he has in response to Taylor Swift. But their management and a lot of their fans might be hoping they'll avoid talking about US politics till they finish those US concerts.

As for what Liam once said - possibly more than once - about American journalists being wankers... That's sometimes true. Less true for journalists covering the news than those covering rock stars. A lot of rock journalists and critics seem insecure, needing to belittle rock stars. Especially if those journalists have never had any accomplishments of their own, particularly creative accomplishments, they seem to feel it necessary to cut rock stars down to their own unaccomplished size, and maybe even go after their fans. Never mind their own background as music fans.

Oasis ran into wankers like that 30 years ago, and they're getting criticized by some of them again on this reunion tour.

One recent example, a woman who seems to think all Oasis fans are male (idiotic) and doesn't like or at least is very condescending toward men (women with a low opinion of men are being just as foolish as men with a low opinion of women), used the tour as an excuse for male-bashing. I've seen other music journalists trying to make this reunion tour an excuse for a rant about something else, using the band's name as clickbait.

Another example, a male journalist, apparently has been jealous of Liam Gallagher since the '90s and sniped at him repeatedly even for his cool (and sometimes stoned) gaze, finding a psychotic threat in it (lol), which suggests that journalist could have used some psychotherapy.

It's good Oasis haven't had any press conferences on this tour, though Noel did call in to his favorite sports talk show the other day. They don't need the media on this tour. If anything, it's the other way around.

And although I wouldn't call whoever wrote that Times story a wanker (any country's journalists can sometimes be wankers), they'd have needed only a minute or two to fact-check what they said about how few US fans Oasis supposedly had in the 1990s.