4 hours ago
5
“Hello … hello … It’s good to be back.” With these words – and the unfortunate possibility of a royalty payment to a certain disgraced ex-pop star – this highly enjoyable fan-worship documentary revives the memory of last year’s staggering and already mythic Oasis reunion tour. It also recollects how effortlessly funny the Gallagher brothers are, like a great comic double act. There’s a big laugh in the tense scene in the rehearsal room, when Liam finally shows up after Noel and everyone else had been there for hours – and the very first thing that comes out of his mouth is a fierce and magnificently sullen objection to the baffles on the drum kit: “They’re giving me the hump.”
Yet to the surprise of many who did not believe, and these biblical echoes are strangely appropriate, Liam and Noel did not fall out; the resulting stadium tour put a fresh coat of paint on the word “phenomenon”. Middle-aged and elderly people together with young people sporting bucket hats, some accompanied by their pets in bucket hats, sang their hearts out as if it was the 90s again and Manchester City had just won the World Cup 10-0 (although this film was evidently completed before Wonderwall’s moment at this year’s World Cup).
We see again the Oasis congregation engaging in colossal Dionysian events of mass joy – but of course, the poignancy of time passing and the irresistible narrative of the brothers’ public reconciliation give a new layer of emotion to the songs. Noel now looks like the silver-fox dad of the band; Liam, with what looks like a ridge or a scar on his nose that I don’t remember from before, looks more like a bloke whose pint you do not want to spill, a pint around which you want to put a 10-metre exclusion zone. But this was always the case. Noel’s songs always combined, in a distinctive way, euphoria and sadness, moods which seem to float free of meaning in the strictest sense. Now they and all their fans have got something to be euphoric and sad about.
As for the brothers’ togetherness, I think the film shows it is sincere and real in public, and real on stage, where it counts. Noel and Liam are rarely interviewed together; here mostly it is Noel solo. I wonder if, like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, they now come together to make music after reaching an accommodation. Whatever wound each other up has not magically vanished, but is being managed. Part of the problem was that Noel’s songwriting credits made the big money – not Liam. Perhaps the lawyers have hammered something out here, but it is not shown in the film.
The documentary begins with an extended montage of the 90s glory days leading to the ugly falling out in the 00s, and how the non-Oasis years coincided with an era of inept politicians and terrible sadness all round. Then we see Keir Starmer chortlingly agree how great it is that Oasis reunited on his watch. But this film misses out one of the most famous moments of their career: Noel’s 1997 handshake with Tony Blair at the Downing Street victory party, which came to capture the zeitgeist of Cool Britannia. The film does not include Noel’s earlier comment at the Brits: “There are seven people in this room tonight who are giving a little bit of hope to young people in this country. That is me, our kid, Bonehead, Guigsy, Alan White and Tony Blair.” Noel is not asked about Blair here, but both him and Liam reject any notion they are “rightwing”.
From here we are immersed in the gigs themselves, on the face of it no bigger in scale than many other band’s live shows, but with the specific tearful ecstasy that U2 or Metallica or the Stones cannot manage. As Liam says, they just stand there, rooted to their mic positions; they don’t do Jagger acrobatics, it’s very relaxing and they can keep doing it for years. It was always difficult to be cynical about Oasis and now it’s impossible.
