“This could be the last time so get involved”: Oasis’ Latest Farewell Tour, Poorly Disguised Cash Grab or Renewed Love of the Game?
by Michéal Haigney
1994. I’m 17 years old, and Oasis release Definitely Maybe. Ceasefire announcements dominate the news in Northern Ireland, and a fragile, dizzying sense of hope is in the air we breathe. Live chart music and bands aren’t something my peers and I have much access to. It is piped into our homes through the radio and TV, and for the next decade, the Gallagher brothers are everywhere, styling themselves as raw, working-class heroes with Irish roots happy to ride the Britpop bandwagon (even playing a Union Jack guitar)! In hindsight, the contradictions and artistic gaslighting were there from the early days (more on that later). They told us exactly who they were; even the Sopranos would nod their heads in appreciation.
2024. Oasis announce their reunion, and a predictable wave of uncritical nostalgia enters the public consciousness. After fifteen years of trading petty insults through the press like a tiresome reality TV show, Liam and Noel finally bury the hatchet. But the illusion of a triumphant return quickly unravels during the ticket rollout. They exploit their fans’ desperation through Ticketmaster’s predatory dynamic pricing algorithm. Standing tickets that were originally advertised at £148.50 skyrocket to an eye-watering £355 or more. The boys from Burnage, who told us they stood against the elite, literally tell suffering fans to stop crying their hearts out and “stop moaning” on social media. Disgusted by this immediate, rapid-fire payday, I stage my own tiny protest a few weeks later at the BBC Radio 2 festival in Preston. When DJ Sara Cox drops an Oasis track to celebrate the reunion, the crowd in the DJ tent erupts into an uncritical frenzy. I stay completely still. I cross my arms, close my mouth, and refuse to sing a single word. I will always look back in anger at the price gouging and continued cash grabbing.
2025. The tour kicks off, and West Belfast’s own Kneecap are heavily intertwined in the orbit of the billionaire brothers. Noel Gallagher plays the cool, counter-culture uncle, rubbing shoulders with them backstage and praising their pro-working-class, anti-establishment energy. Some might say it’s a perfect match, but as Oasis nets an estimated €61 million from their Dublin residency at Croke Park alone, thanks to surge pricing, the hypocrisy becomes impossible to ignore. Kneecap has built an entire brand on fierce political integrity and fighting the system, but there they are in the VIP section, clinking glasses with the ultimate symbols of corporate music greed. What does it say about your radical, anti-imperialist integrity when you happily fraternise with multi-national corporate oligarchs who let a global ticketing monopoly fleece struggling workers? It turns out that fighting the system takes a break when the hospitality passes are handed out and you decide to just roll with it.
2026. The next stadium tour dates are announced, and the general public hype has significantly cooled. The frantic cultural urgency of the initial reunion has passed me by entirely, fading into background noise. This time around, following a massive public backlash and a CMA investigation, the band completely overhauls their sales strategy and ditches the dynamic pricing surge algorithm. But make no mistake, this isn’t a charitable act. Little by little, they simply bypass the drama by locking tickets at a flat, premium baseline rate from the start. Standing tickets are now a minimum £170.50 plus booking fees! In the middle of an ongoing cost-of-living crisis! Those prices are, IMHO, still too high for students sitting in the McClay library balancing part-time jobs against soaring food prices and Belfast rent. A £170 entry fee isn’t just steep, it’s an exclusionary barrier. With no plans for a new album, no fresh creative output, and no artistic drive, what you get is a heavy, lucrative nostalgia train rolling down the tracks, hoovering up cash like it’s the lines of coke being consumed by Mancunians in the nineties. With a dwindling supply of consumer desperation, how long will they keep this gravy train on the tracks? Remember, time and again they have shown us exactly who they are, a purely commercial enterprise trading on a past they have no intention of updating. Let the stadium crowds keep funding the cash grab, I definitely, absolutely like Blur better anyway.
