Gig Review | Oasis: Live ’25 at Wembley Stadium, 28th September 2025

After losing an entire Saturday trying to get to tickets to the first batch of live dates that Oasis announced, I’m hesitant to say that I was fortunate enough to be able to get tickets to the last of Wembley dates added onto the Live ’25 tour – those tickets felt bloody hard-earned in the end. Yet, having been successful in a ballot in which so many others were not, and having secured tickets at a pre-set fixed price, rather than the dynamically-priced rip-offs of that much-maligned Saturday, some degree of luck certainly came into it - or perhaps it was fate. Walking into that gig with the lad – now a grown-up CEO and justice of the peace to boot – with whom I used to critique Oasis lyrics in the mid-90s, it felt like we were always meant to be here now.

For me, the approach to Wembley was unique as it was the first time that I’d been there for anything other than a football match. Having grown accustomed to the partisan banter between rival supporters, there was something liberating about attending an event where everyone was on the same page; everyone was celebrating. Even the losers. 

And the event hadn’t even begun yet.



Rather than watch Cast warm-up the crowd, we were drawn into the Fan Zone by the sounds of the Killers and James, whose songs had been appropriated by the MiddleTones - a perfectly selected tribute band who had us singing along raucously long before the brothers Gallagher had taken to the stage inside. That’s really quite an achievement given how much punters were being charged for cans of Stella poured into plastic cups. It’s a wonder anyone at all was even remotely pissed at those prices.



On the concourse, we listened to Richard Ashcroft belt out many of the Verve’s signature tunes as we suffered the traditional Wembley wait for wees. How a football stadium could be constructed with so few urinals and so many male cubicles is beyond me. My wife and daughters berate me whenever I bemoan the dearth of urinals in modern buildings because they take the firm view that as they have to queue for the loo, so should I, whereas I hold the trenchant opinion that there’s no fucking need for a man to queue for the loo as we don’t need to sit down for a piss, and nobody poos in stadiums. We just need a massive trough to urinate in. You should be able to unzip as you’re walking in, zip up as you’re walking out. Even with a capacity crowd there should never be a need to queue for more than about thirty seconds.

As we weren’t tempted to partake in the customary Wembley cuisine – as ever it’s chicken and chips, or falafel and chips for veggies – we entered the arena just as the screens lit up and “Fuckin’ in the Bushes” assaulted our eardrums. Sipping Stella from a half-empty plastic cup with one hand and spilling it clumsily from a full plastic cup in the other, we descended onto the pitch, from where, in a bizarre inversion, we could look up to where the likes of Alan Shearer and Sir David Beckham were looking down on us. Just a few metres forward of the front-row seats that my daughter and I occupied for a recent Women’s FA Cup Final, my friend and I were engulfed by a euphoric mass of humanity who cumulatively belted out “Hello” at such a decibel level that I don’t think I heard a single word that left Liam Gallagher’s gob.



The next few tracks were a blur of jumping around with strangers who knew every word of every song irrespective of whether it first appeared on the sixteen-platinum (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? or one of its gem-laden singles. Why I ever got rid of those cigarette packet-style CD single box sets I once had is beyond me now; they’d probably be worth a fortune. Rock classic “Acquiesce” encapsulated not only the grudgingly acknowledged symbiosis of the Gallagher brothers, but their relationship with their audience, and even the audience’s own relationships with each other. I certainly had my old friend from 1995 well and truly back, belting out “Morning Glory” and “Some Might Say” to those watching from the seats above us with much more fervour than the deliberately cool Liam Gallagher.

 

Now I’ve seen many a Britpop-era band play live – Radiohead, Suede, and the Manics to name a few – but what really set this gig apart for me was its superlative setlist. Everybody knows that touring bands generally have an agenda to promote new material, even if that new material is a label-selected Greatest Hits compilation, but Live ’25 truly breaks the mould in that it isn’t a band plugging a new album and just dutifully peppering in a few classics, nor is it a band laboriously working through all their mainstream chart hits. Live ’25 is Oasis playing the best Oasis songs without a thought for their provenance. Most of the tracks are either lifted directly from Definitely Maybe or (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, or have been taken from singles of the same era, whereas Be Here Now and Heathen Chemistry are given representation proportionate to the patchy quality of those albums, and everything else is - quite rightly - ignored altogether (unless you count “Fuckin’ in the Bushes”, which I don’t. It’s just noise).

Of course, there were still quibbles. Most attendees I spoke – well, slurred - to lamented the omission of the iconic “Columbia”, particularly when its obvious slot was instead taken up by the little-known B-side “Fade Away”, which marked not only the first of my friend’s many toilet breaks but a decided lull in the atmosphere. Even this track, though, clearly had special resonance for the recently reconciled brothers as the giant screens that flanked them displayed a collage of childhood photographs, perhaps allowing them to break through the boarded-up doors that had separated them for so many years.



After the aggressive tumult of “Bring it on Down”, “Cigarettes & Alcohol”, “Supersonic” and “Roll with It” left us scratching our heads over Liam’s aberrantly conventional pronunciation of sunshine, imagination and all the many other -tions (maybe that James Buckley parody got under his skin...), Noel Gallagher took centre stage to deliver an emotional “Talk Tonight” followed by the uplifting brace of “Half the World Away” and “Little by Little”. “The Importance of Being Idle” would have slotted into this section perfectly, if I were to nitpick, but leaving Liam idle for three tracks was already pushing Noel’s luck.

As a spectacular light and sound show heralded the start of “D’You Know What I Mean?”, I lamented the state of my cardio fitness levels as once more, the whole crowd on the pitch seemed to conjoin into one bouncing, triumphant mass that continued right through the anthemic “Stand By Me”. Thankfully the lower key, but utterly beautiful, “Cast No Shadow”, offered me a brief reprise from all the jumping up and down. When my friend snuck off to the loo again (I warned him not to break the seal), I took the opportunity to spin around and take in the full extent of the euphoria around me. Ninety thousand people. Most seemingly my age or thereabouts, but many younger too. Some my age but weighed down by clearly a teenage child in an Oasis tee. About seven over fifty. Adidas everywhere.



Returning from the loo with more Stella in hand, my friend joined me to sway through “Slide Away” and “Whatever”, before asking me to show him the setlist playlist on my Spotify again so he could see what was coming next. He was not to be disappointed. Has there ever been a stronger finish to a set than an emotional “Live Forever”, delivered against a giant backdrop of the late, great Ricky “the Hitman” Hatton, followed in short order by an explosive “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”? I doubt it. But it was the encore that would have lifted the roof, had Wembley’s designers deigned to add one.

“The Masterplan” is not just one of the best Oasis songs, but one of the best songs (I’d say period, but I’m not American, so I’ll just add what we Brits call a full stop to the right of these parenthesis). To think that I discovered it hidden away on the “Wonderwall” CD single is, from today’s viewpoint, both unbelievably wasteful and somehow quite romantic. I remember being really annoyed when it became the title track of the eponymous Masterplan compilation album a few years later because it didn’t feel like mine anymore. I really miss those days of unearthing a secret masterpiece; telling all your mates about it; seeing it quietly gain traction. On this night though, I was more than happy to share it.



“Don’t Look Back in Anger” followed, and it was nothing short of joyous. There’s no better anthem. “Wonderwall”, whilst a bit overrated in my view, is every bit as iconic, and I’ve never enjoyed it more than I did alongside ninety thousand fellow devotees, singing rather crying their hearts out while covered in spilt lager and all desperate for a wee. Thankfully the days of “I am the Walrus” closing out Oasis gigs have long since gone, and it was with the peerlessly poignant “Champagne Supernova” that Liam serenaded the UK crowd for the last time on this tour.

I wasn’t sure whether the signs around the venue advising that the show was being filmed was meant to be a warning to behave, or an incitement not to, but despite past form Oasis have now gone the whole UK tour without the Gallagher brothers throwing so much as a plum at each other, and if Liam’s only real comment of the evening is to be believed, then this tour will not be their last. If they do return, I sincerely hope that it will be with the same sort of show as Live ’25. The cynic in me suspects a new album might follow instead, though, and, if it does, Live ’25 may prove to be the sweetest of sweet spots to have finally seen Oasis live.

I’ll never see the Beatles. I’ll never see Nirvana. And if I ever see the likes of Bob Dylan or Pink Floyd, it’ll probably be shit because they won’t play half the stuff that I want them too. This, though, was damn near perfection - very probably the best setlist that there has ever been in the history of musical performances, delivered with calm dynamism to the most appreciative of crowds. Fuck off Knebworth ’96, we have a new champion.