Review: After a 16-year Absence, Oasis’ Return to the U.S. Is Biblical
https://thirdcoastreview.com/music/2025/08/29/review-after-a-16-year-absence-oasis-return-to-the-u-s-is-biblical
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There's no need to run over the details of the band's first run, but a snapshot: in the mid-‘90s their first two albums in particular produced multiple international hits with huge guitars, Liam's distinctive sneering bullhorn rawk 'n roll vocals countered by Noel's more soaring honeyed tenor, and a deep love of The Beatles and simple song structures that pack a universal wallop. And the brothers famously fought. A lot. And the press loved to exacerbate those issues, but I confess I never really bought into the "they really hate each other" thing. I know fame complicated things, but these two are brothers, and I never doubted they would eventually reunite.
The band opened this tour with a few U.K. shows, including an instantly legendary (and probably excellent for the U.K.’s tourism industry since I know an astounding number of people who ventured overseas for those shows) 7-night run at Wembley Stadium, and the band has been VERY good about setting a distinct number of steps and events around each show. So, by the time it got to Chicago, we knew exactly what we were in for: two hours of hits with a firmly established setlist, with Los Bros Gallagher evidently having a good time at every show so far.
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To help orient you in my own tastes, so you can better re-frame my thoughts in relation to your own expectations, I will share that my personal highlights were the B-side anthem "Acquiesce" with its soaring refrain seemingly crafted around the onstage siblings, "Because we need each other / We believe in one another / And I know we're going to uncover / What's sleeping in our soul" and the borderline orch-pop of another legendary non-album single "Whatever." And a particularly emotional delivery of "Little By Little" by Noel showcased the band can access emotional depth and turn it into a stadium anthem. Those moments might have made made me smile widest, but at not point of the set did I stop smiling.
Which brings us to "biblical." Any concert can be a person's church, but an Oasis show is a huge primal force whose waves of distortion and sing-along melodies transmogrify into a blanket that falls over the massed crowd, pulls them more tightly together, and unites tens of thousands into a single heartbeat and voice. This is the power of Oasis and the Gallagher brothers that first made them stars and then launched them into the realm of living legends.***
And those 3 asterisks are for a note that reads: "I know this phrase can get abused, but I assure you in this instance it is not hyperbole.
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