“The Violin Plays, the Heart Breaks”
It was almost like a classic story: I was turning eighteen, and to my surprise I became what our overseas counterparts had been calling VJs for some time (we hadn’t fully grasped the idea of DJs yet). In other words, I occasionally went on air at night on local cable TV and tried to say something intelligent, good, eternal—and relevant. There was a certain “cowboy romance” to it: the 1990s, a pre-internet era when any scrap of information felt priceless.
Getting through a showbiz drought—surviving on gossip from acquaintances, the occasional glossy magazine from a neighboring country, or printouts of “teletype” news from a tech friend who, somehow, had internet access—felt like an adventure. Our savior was the “satellite dish,” whose generous gifts showed up only late at night. We prepared empty VHS tapes for those nights, and hours watching MTV could be as thrilling as a date with the prettiest peer. So when one evening a black-and-white image appeared, first with an acoustic guitar intro and then the London Session Orchestra’s strings, I knew something remarkable was being born—something that would be argued about for years. It was the video for “Whatever” by the then-little-known British band Oasis.
In the next fifteen years, that prediction proved true: a group of young men from Manchester, led by the Gallagher brothers (Noel on guitar and the younger Liam on vocals), became the focus of the music press and the tabloids (especially the tabloids, as the brothers’ behavior fed endless headlines), sparked a manufactured but deeply felt rivalry with Blur, and ignited a long-running debate about the meaning of “Britpop.” The years that followed were filled with solo projects and annual reunion rumors, regularly fueled by the excitable British press, turning into betting odds and an apparently unattainable dream for millions of fans.
The Great Battle of Heavyweights
It’s always worth looking at the pieces that make up any cultural phenomenon. Since 1994, when Oasis’s videos started getting heavy rotation on MTV and their debut album Definitely Maybe arrived, the Gallagher name rarely left the British pages and increasingly filled tabloid space. To be fair, Oasis didn’t inspire admiration in everyone: for many people in England the name became synonymous with irritation because of the scandals and antics around the band and its frontmen.
Yet why did young—and later older—Britain fall for Oasis and almost crown them a symbol of national pride? Was it Liam’s habit of tilting his head toward the mic with his hands behind his back? His sunglasses, Adidas sweaters, parkas, or the once-popular Alaska jackets he wore when he skipped a cloakroom and shocked a tuxedoed awards crowd? Or maybe the “Gallagher haircuts,” which became endless meme fodder online for both fans and critics?
Many in the ’90s liked to say that someone had seen the new Beatles in those Manchester lads and cried “Hallelujah!” For a fuller, more media-friendly fairy tale, an artificial rivalry with Blur was staged, turning the question of Britpop supremacy into a sporting contest similar to the old Beatles-vs.-Stones debates. In August 1995, New Musical Express practically placed bets on the outcome with a bold cover titled “Heavyweight Championship of Great Britain.”
The Beatles are, of course, a national touchstone for most people in Britain. For NME’s 50th-anniversary issue, Liam Gallagher posed holding a portrait of John Lennon made from an archival magazine cover, a symbolic link between generations. But beyond The Beatles, even a casual listener can hear echoes of The Rolling Stones, The Who, Neil Young, The Kinks, The Smiths, and Stone Roses on Oasis’s first three albums. It’s no exaggeration to say their arrival brought back a version of what people called “true rock ‘n’ roll,” which felt sorely missed in the mid-’90s.
Don’t Look Back in Anger
In the summer of 1994, early in their meteoric rise, Liam and bassist Paul McGuigan got into a fight on a ferry to the Netherlands, causing trouble for local police; they were arrested and denied entry to the country.
After that, drama followed: constant conflicts, fights between the brothers right before performances (a live way to test who was the real heavyweight), canceled tours, broken teeth in nightclubs, large fines and thousands of dollars in bail, and Liam’s audacious claim that Oasis was more popular than The Beatles (a line that invited the same kind of shock John Lennon got when he said “The Beatles are more popular than Jesus”). Paul McCartney called Liam’s remark a “kiss of death.” Tracking the tabloid chronicle became exhausting—it wasn’t why we hunted for cassettes of those first albums and could even drive some listeners away. But any loud incident, another Sun cover, or a foolish mouth could be forgiven for one reason only: the songs.
We forgave them because of the music: the raw rock ‘n’ roll of “Roll With It” and “Some Might Say”; “Wonderwall,” which works as an acoustic singalong among friends and still echoes in subway passages and stadiums; the two versions of the “Live Forever” video (British and American), one of which symbolically buries and resurrects the band’s drummer; the opening eleven seconds of “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” which recall Lennon’s “Imagine” and became a kind of motto for fans and the Gallaghers; and the plaintive “Stop Crying Your Heart Out,” a song that helped people through heartbreak and still offers comfort in hard times.
On August 28, 2009, after another fight with his younger brother, Noel Gallagher announced he was leaving Oasis and that he would never share a stage with Liam again. On October 8 it was officially announced that the band had split. As it turned out, the split lasted only fifteen years. During the inter-Oasis period, Noel formed Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and Liam fronted Beady Eye; neither came close to the success of the original band. Not a year went by in those fifteen without reunion rumors.
“Wembley” Branch on the Left Bank
Strangely and almost fantastically, both famous brothers have visited our region—though in different years and on separate trips. During the summer of 2012, when European Championship matches were being held across Poland and Ukraine, Noel performed on Brovarskyi Avenue with his band High Flying Birds. Kyiv was serving as the base for England’s national team, and the show felt like a special gift to the English fans in the crowd.
More than half the audience at the International Exhibition Center were English supporters, and it could easily have seemed that Noel had come to Kyiv to cheer on the national team. A few hours before the concert he held an autograph session in the city center, patiently signing memorabilia for the most devoted fans. During the show he performed Oasis songs, and singing “Whatever” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” in unison with football fans gave the night a Wembley-like feeling. Later it emerged that Boris Grebenshchikov had been at the concert, standing near the soundboard, but only a few people recognized him that evening.
Noel Gallagher’s autograph session in Kyiv
Liam first came to Ukraine in the summer of 2019 to headline Atlas Weekend. In the weeks before the festival his portrait appeared on public transport across the city, a small claim that Kyiv belonged on the map of progressive European stops. I joked that Liam probably dreamed of riding Kyiv’s trolleybus route No. 19, even if only as his own poster. I was at another festival in Portugal that summer, so I had to rely on friends’ reports, which were mixed. Still, the fact that he came and sang old Oasis hits live at the National Expo Center was incredible.
The reunited Oasis are heading out on a major tour, with tickets already selling fast for 2025. Despite the daily upheavals of the world, the most optimistic fans are planning a year or more ahead. Pessimists grumble that the brothers will ruin hopes and fight again at the first shows. But compared with the fact that thousands of fans finally got their dream, that hardly matters.
