A private pilgrimage spanning 29 years – from Knebworth’s ecstatic chaos to the rain-soaked reunion at Heaton Park 2025, the place a lifelong obsession lastly comes full circle.
What occurs whenever you lastly catch the thrill you’ve been chasing for nearly 30 years. That is my story….
Sunday, August sixteenth 1996, aged 19: sprinting into the entrance pit at Knebworth, coronary heart pounding, a free-spirited teenager chasing the sound of my technology. Sunday twentieth July 2025: front-pit certain once more; the ultimate homecoming evening of ‘Stay 25’ at Manchester’s Heaton Park, aged 47 with my 21-year-old son. For 3 a long time, I’ve chased that first excessive. Unbeknownst to me on the time, I’d peaked in ‘96. Oasis at Knebworth was the gig of my life, no occasion got here shut, and oh did I strive. As life swept me on a riptide to duty, it turned a cherished time-capsule in my thoughts of an easier, carefree period…
Younger and invincible, a pilgrimage from the North West. Fiesta Mark 2 home windows wound down, mixtapes on the prepared, we carried solely a head stuffed with Madchester desires and our golden tickets. One of many fortunate 10%, obtained by means of dedication, persistence and *petty crime – I’d picked open our flatshare payphone with a bobby pin, slotted the identical 50p again and again, shaking with adrenaline as Ticketline linked with a click on, a style of buzzes to return. *I put the 50p again.
The day of the gig, we had no grasp plan, the heady, halcyon occasions of ‘wing it and see’. The second gates slid open, like rabbits from a lure, we fled as quick as our Kickers and Rockports might carry us. Not only for view. For the pit. The pulsating heartbeat of the beast. To a backdrop of Solid, baking sunshine intensifying lingering side-effects of the earlier evening’s get together, I cooled off in a vest purchased with the £20 notice rapidly stuffed in my bra for beer and merch. Chaos and giddiness orbited and expanded in tandem with the aroma of lukewarm lager and squidgy black. Anticipation was constructing, an amazing feeling that the universe was revolving round this one discipline in Stevenage. Or perhaps that was simply the smoke.
When the lads swaggered onstage, it went wild. Kings of the fortress. Their songs didn’t simply soundtrack our lives; they have been our lives. They have been us, and we have been them. We have been now on the epicentre of a cultural tsunami. I regarded backwards from the pit into an ocean of friends, communal in our elation. The primal scream of 125,000 souls in unison, a metronome of heartbeats. The psychedelic stage spirals sucked us in, swirled us round and spat us out once more. Roman candles boomed a crescendo, a closing curtain of smoke lowered over hugging our bodies, I used to be swept alongside a tidal wave of pageant flotsam, eardrums disfunct, considering: nothing will ever contact this. Seems I used to be proper. And for practically three a long time, I’ve been chasing that Holy Grail first-hit excessive. Gig after gig.
By means of life’s upheavals, their music noticed me by means of. I’d clung to the memorabilia: front-pit band, vest, programme, ticket, fuzzy Supasnaps of Noel, 5 rows deep from the barrier. Till someday, they have been gone. Cleared out of an attic throughout a home transfer. Because the years fell by just like the rain, I missed these little treasures, meaningless to most, components of my historical past that have been bagged up and thrown away. I longed not only for the music however for one thing tangible once more. Submit-split, I watched the brothers individually. All of the beady-eyed, flying birds, Liam stadium-fillers, Positively Possibly’s, Liam turning wheels to Mars by way of Liverpool, dripping rainbows with Squire. Sang my coronary heart out at each Britpop and indie band’s reunion tour – 20, 25, and thirtieth anniversary excursions. Every thing electrical in its personal method. Arenas, festivals, intimate acoustic and orchestrals. At all times hoping for that star-aligning second the place I’d really feel it once more. At all times a chemical ingredient lacking. Nice nights, sure. However by no means that.. Every time, I walked away considering, perhaps subsequent time.
I waited. By no means gave up hope. I used to be ridiculed, instructed to let it go. One pal must eat a hat.. As a result of I knew in my bones that someday it will occur. In April ‘24, a Jo Whiley podcast appeared known as The Rise And Fall Of Oasis. At that second, I knew. Then lastly in August got here the announcement: Oasis, reunited. twenty fourth August ‘24 was a reluctant “final one for the street” all-dayer at SWG3 in Glasgow, a pal’s fiftieth. Hadn’t raved for 25 years, threw shapes the likes of which hadn’t been witnessed in a long time. Three days into the restoration, reunion information emerged, mirage-like in a desert, and ticket pre-sale was in three days. I barely dared consider the reality, thought I’d died on that dancefloor. If I’m already useless, how would I do know?
This time, no payphone thuggery. As an unique member of Oasisnet, I obtained a hallowed pre-sale code. Coronary heart palpitating, palms trembling as soon as once more, this time in a digital ready room with hundreds of others, I went all-in: VIP, exhibition entry, restricted version merch bundle, the works. This time, for my Gen Z son, born in 2004, raised on their music, an enormous a part of the soundtrack to his life from in utero. Nurtured all through a time missing in definitive youth tradition, he latched on to the bands vitality, my tales, their rambunctiousness, humour and angle. He shared this and different cultural inheritances together with his buddies; they absorbed the Gallagher back-catalogue in its entirety. I made a lifelong promise to my son that after they reformed, I’d take him to witness them, dwell, first-hand.
So on Sunday, twentieth July 25, we strolled by means of the gates of Heaton Park facet by facet. No frantic working this time. I had a entrance pit assure. I wistfully seen the long-lost objects of memorabilia on the pre-show fan exhibition, took pictures of the Knebworth wristband and ticket, that are an in depth second. Later, the stage loomed massive, the vitality was charged, just like the Mancunian cloudburst that was about to interrupt over our heads. Throughout Solid, my son queued within the pouring rain, soaked to the bone for a t-shirt to shock me in gratitude. Chaos and giddiness orbited and expanded in tandem with the aroma of lukewarm lager and one thing inexperienced. Anticipation constructing, an amazing feeling that the universe was revolving round this one discipline in Manchester. Positively wasn’t the smoke.
After which they walked out. Liam. Noel. It went wild. Kings of town. Collectively once more. Bonehead, Gem, Andy. A wall of guitars, the roar of soundwaves acquainted to hundreds of thousands, bringing it on down in a 2020s punk-desert, giving us life. I regarded behind me- an inter-generational ocean, communal in our elation. The primal scream of 80,000 souls in unison, a metronome of heartbeats. The psychedelic LED Jumbotrons sucked us in, swigged us round and spat us out once more.
I’d carried a flame for nearly 30 years and ended up full circle, proper again within the entrance pit. For a second, it felt like time folded in on itself. I used to be 19 once more and 47 on the similar time, standing on the sting of two selves, an epic emotional collision of previous and current. I imagined there’d be tears from the off, however I used to be up within the sky, elated. Leaping, cheering, singing.Till Wonderwall. A tune I’d prevented for many years, too overplayed, too overhyped, parodied. All of a sudden that, of all songs, broke me. Standing nonetheless within the rain, a surreal picture of each brothers collectively as display giants, 30 years of eager for a second collapsing right into a single level of sunshine. Crying into an previous band flag, someway, that tune meant every part once more. And my son, ecstatic, leaping, yelling each lyric, shiny eyes on cartoon stalks, till Champagne Supernova. The hovering, sustained finale. He broke then. Tears streamed, hugging a stranger, crying alongside him. And in that second, I knew he felt what I’d felt in 1996.
Three days later, I wrote this, and we’ve nonetheless barely spoken concerning the gig, simply communicated our ideas in silence. Possibly as a result of there are not any phrases sufficiently big. It was an out of physique, virtually transcendental expertise. A dream you wait so lengthy for, that when it lastly occurs, it appears like stepping exterior actuality. And now? Life arc, full. That stressed itch that drove me to gig after gig for many years is scratched. All feels proper with the world, nonetheless momentary. These gigs turned greater than any of us ever anticipated. Folks united, reunited, spreading the love, assembly previous buddies and making new ones. Nostalgia turned current day pleasure. Mother and father shared the expertise of a lifetime with their youngsters. Lucid recollections tagged onto kaleidoscopic ones.
For me, the summit I’ve been climbing towards for 30 years has been reached. Retired from an everlasting quest. There’s no increased excessive – and I don’t want one. For my son, his journey has simply begun, and so the everlasting loop continues. I went to Knebworth as a teen with contemporary hopes and desires in a condensed cultural period that can by no means be recreated. I went to Heaton Park virtually 30 years later, bone-weary, with an grownup son, in a diffuse cultural wasteland carrying the tapestry of half a century’s life story.
When one thing so long-awaited lastly occurs, there’s a way of completion, like I’ve learn the final web page of a guide I’d been carrying for years. I do hope there’s an epilogue, but when not, I can die comfortable. The chase is over. And none of us are getting any youthful, however our legacy will dwell endlessly.
~
Phrases by Joanna Robinson
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