From Britpop’s golden age to Gen Z playlists, how one band united dad and mom and children 30 years aside. As soon as the poster kids of Britpop swagger, powered by guitars and plastered throughout headlines, they’re now streamed by a technology not but born after they first hit the charts, a uncommon widespread language for mums, dads, and youngsters alike.”
Like many Gen X-ers, my first Oasis Stay expertise was in 1996. Knebworth. A heady, chaotic, superb weekend, a defining cultural second for a complete technology. I used to be nineteen, armed with nothing however the garments worn to an all-night barely-legal industrial property rave, £20 and an unshakable conviction I used to be about to witness one thing unforgettable…
I immediately grew to become a fan of the Gallaghers, Bonehead, Guigs and McCarroll the second they hurtled like a runaway practice onto the up-til-then-’blah’, 4-channel British TV and radio. Rising up in a gray, Lowry-esque, industrial city between Liverpool and Manchester, my disillusioned teenage pals and I discovered ourselves smack bang within the eye of an ideal youth-culture vortex. It was after post-punk, with New Wave leaving us chilly, and we have been deep into the blissful, dishevelled ‘Madchester’ revolution. Numerous seminal subversive bands exploded supernovae-like inside a 30-mile radius of my childhood house, and we soaked all of it up just like the culture-starved clean canvases we have been: The Stone Roses, The Verve, Completely happy Mondays, Forged, Charlatans, James, Oasis. An octagon of indie that couldn’t fail to evoke even probably the most angst-ridden youth, malnourished and nauseous from a food plan of bloated ’80s dad-rock and new romantic cheese.
There was no http://, no YouTube, no streaming. We mainlined our day by day hit of recent sounds and band photographs by way of WH Smith; muso mags hailed the descent of “Britpop”, late-night brash, trash-TV reveals imbibed by way of a post-pub haze, or channelled by way of fuzzy FM on aerialed ghetto-blasters. We lined up loyally in the identical indie 3-stripe uniform, gangly troopers exterior HMV and Woolworths, marching in for 7-inch vinyl, cassettes and VHS copies of singles, albums and stay gigs. Weekend missions to Affleck’s Palace for posters, and we created Wonderwalls in our rooms. My Stay By The Sea VHS has outlived a few of these pals…
Oasis gave us swagger, escapism and working-class poetry. They have been certainly one of us, relatable in each approach; right down to the cigarettes, the alcohol, their anthemic chants siphoned throughout pool tables by way of a juke field, weaving their approach all through a mis-spent youth.
Knebworth wasn’t only a gig; it was a cultural climax. Two nights, a name of responsibility to half one million followers and the naked chops to consider their band can be larger than the world itself. And us, their barmy military marching proper behind them.
For Gen X, Oasis symbolised one thing larger than the sum of their elements: confidence in a decade that promised us optimism and hope. A sound that made you’re feeling seen and heard, related and invincible. They bolstered and gave a voice to youngsters like me, rising up on council estates and cassette tapes.
Quick-forward practically three a long time to 2025, and I used to be again within the entrance pit. This time at Heaton Park, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with my Gen Z 21-year-old son. Liam and Noel strode on stage collectively as soon as once more. Two lives, two eras, the identical band. This reunion mattered not only for the OG followers who have been there the primary time round, however for a completely new technology who’ve been, and nonetheless are, discovering Oasis in actual time, their approach…
My son and his pals grew up in an period the place music was not tangible or tactile.
- No chunky stacks, no high-fidelity, no vinyl sleeve, or CD booklet to pore over each minute element of the band and manufacturing. It’s invisible, algorithmic, streamed and solitary.
- There’s no scene. No sweaty report store every Saturday morning.
- No tribe. No revolt.
- Their contemporaries’ pursuits are diffuse. Too many platforms, myriad channels.
- Theirs is a worldwide village, they usually aren’t having 25-asides earlier than it’s darkish.
- No schoolyard chatter every Monday about The Phrase, TFI Friday, or Prime Of The Pops, which all of your mates had seen over the weekend.
- A world the place each child is an island, with too many distractions, an excessive amount of stress to adapt, but nothing to bind them collectively…
However Oasis? They nonetheless appear to hit in another way. Offering a degree of contact for a lot of Gen Z by way of osmosis, acquainted but defiant, a code written into their DNA, resisting deletion in a disposable tradition. Zoomers curate Gallagher B-Facet playlists on apps, streamed by way of wi-fi audio system. Band information precipitated from an invisible cloud, posters arrive the following day with one click on of a finger. They’re simply as loyal, simply as devoted and love a 3 stripe uniform. They should be on the reunion gigs simply as a lot as we do. Oasis weren’t only a ’90s phenomenon; they grew to become a hand-me-down legacy.
My son didn’t simply know the songs, he lived them; by way of my gig tales, my books, images, and memorabilia. Oasis supplied them with one accessible, lasting pocket of revolt, authenticity and rawness, all parts lacking from the polished, robotic, conformist 2020s. When he sang “Champagne Supernova” by way of tears at Heaton Park, I realised one thing: this reunion wasn’t purely about nostalgia. It was about cultural inheritance, and no person can ever take that away.
So why does this reunion matter a lot to 2 generations? As a result of it closes one cultural circle whereas opening one other. It’s not simply unhappy previous space-cadets and Gallagher-diehards reliving their youth; it’s dad and mom and children creating new reminiscences collectively. It’s proof that nice music doesn’t age, solely amplifies and multiplies. The Oasis reunion isn’t historical past repeating; it’s historical past increasing. And in a fractured, hyper-digital world, the analogue sight of two brothers standing underneath Mancunian rain, guitars roaring, seems like a uncommon reminder that some issues will at all times be the identical.
For me, the chase is over. For my son, it’s simply begun. And perhaps that’s the magic of Oasis: they didn’t simply soundtrack my life, they’ve echoed by way of generations, and let’s hope they proceed to for a few years to come back.
We’re sadly reminded with growing frequency that our heroes and musical legends are leaving us slowly however certainly. However when a band could make 20 years collapse into one shared roar, that’s greater than music. That’s immortality. You, them, and I’ll hold the dream alive.
Phrases by Joanna Robinson 2025
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