Why I won't be in the queue for Oasis tickets for this reunion tour

It’s hard to imagine that world now. These days my five-year-old daughter can demand any song in the history of time while we are in the car, however improbable (It’s Raining Tacos and Happy Birthday Kaka have been some notable and awful recent ones); in the mid-90s we’d be glued to Mark Goodier from 7pm onwards in case he had any upcoming singles or other recordings.

Oasis sounded like nothing and everything. They were heavy but not metal, attitude-y but not punk, and glam but not comedy. It was exciting, and as well as the music itself, and their well-publicised attitude and arguing, they were major part of a few years when the UK was on fire for music. 

Britpop has become a maligned term now, being interchangeable with dadrock, meaning just stodgy guitar music by mop-haired blokes with Union flags on their instruments. But the 1993/4 vintage Britpop was much more - it was just an explosion of creativity which could actually encompass the fey, pervy cleverness of Pulp, the sadness of Portishead, and even Tricky’s trip hop, all expressing what it was like to be young and British, alongside the more obvious contenders as Suede, Blur and Elastica.  

Oasis were another part of it - not art school, despite being on Creation not really having an ‘indie’ mindset, not anything other being than in love with the idea of rock music, and being convinced of their own brilliance. And at first they were brilliant. 

They headlined Glastonbury 1995, four months before What’s The Story Morning Glory came out and tore it up. I was there and I’ve never been so energised after a gig - my friends and I had run out of money so we were stone-cold sober but intoxicated by it all. I’ve read things since in which some people there had a lukewarm reaction. Maybe the sound at the back wasn’t any good, maybe some people didn’t want to hear new and unreleased songs, but down at the front it was amazing. 

But it was diminishing returns from thereon in. Although What’s the Story would be heard coming from every car and every university halls of residence that autumn, a couple of songs aside I never thought it was much cop (Wonderwall is just a tuneless, bathetic dirge and I will keep fighting on that hill until the end) and Be Here Now - well, I was temping at a local what’s on magazine in the summer of 1997 and it was sent a preview cassette that was not allowed to leave the office (all of this is true). When it was put on the office stereo people openly laughed. I don’t know what was or wasn’t taken during the writing and recording but it certainly sounds like self-important cocaine-bloated arrogance.

I totally get that they improved again after that, but even so after Definitely Maybe I can’t think of a single Oasis track, except the string-driven Whatever, that surprised. Many hum along OK, but are nothing to get excited about. You can predict how they’ll go within the first eight bars, and that’s not really rock and roll.

And away from the music, the bickering went from being funny - listen to Wibbling Rivalry for a proper laugh - to being repetitive. Millionaires unable to get on with each other. Sad.

And so I won’t be in the queue for tickets. Good luck to anyone who is, and I hope you have a good time, but I’d rather remember Oasis for their 1994 explosion than milking the applause of a crowd just happy to still be alive.