Don’t Look Back in Angers: the story of the Oasis reunion

“Don’t look back in angener”, “don’t look at the past with anger,” Sing Noel Gallagher. It is not an exhortation. On the stage of the Cardiff’s mainty stadium, where Oasis started the highly anticipated reunion last night, that verse becomes a declaration of rock love. The one that the oldest – and wise – of the most raised brothers of rock addresses to the other, liam. Without gear, without moine. They all cry in the stands and in the parterre of the Cardiff stadium, chosen to host the first of the 17 shows of 1.4 million tickets sold and 400 million pounds (470 million euros) of recessed. And who knows that a few tears of emotion did not go even to Noel and Liam in the backstage, before the gigantic written with the band of the band behind the stage illuminated, after the opening entrusted first to the cast and then to the former Verve Richard Ashcroft (which he dedicated to the Gallagher “Bitter Sweet Symphony).

It’s all true. And the fans make it when when at 8.15 pm the Gallagher present themselves by avoiding all forms of divism, with “Hello”. You look at them to bury their respective war rides on stage, after sixteen years of arrows, insults and a real family feud, and you think not, it cannot be just a matter of money. There is something that goes beyond what (not) can be seen on the stage of the Cardiff’s mainty stadium, while making history dusted off all the classics of the band’s repertoire who in the 90s brought the rock made in the UK to the head of the world charts by selling 75 million copies, when the records were really purchased, twenty years before streaming. Something romantic and poetic, that words cannot explain. “Because we need each other / we believe in one another”, recite the verses of “acquiesce”. So different from each other, a more introverted and shy one, the other more Caciarone and Divo, Noel and Liam had needed to stay for all these years away from each other to smooth the corners of their respective characters and allow their edges to return to match each other. To look at them on the stage of the mainty stadium they seem one: they complete each other.

“Morning Glory”, “Some Might Say”, “Cigarettes & Alcohol”, “Fade Away”, “Supersonic”, “Roll With It”: together with the former historical components of the group, the bassist Andy Bell and Paul guitarists “Bonehead” Arthurs and Gem Archer, to which the shift drivers Joey Waronker were added for the occasion Christian Madden, respectively on drums and keyboards, Noel (a little clumsy) and Liam (a splendid fifty year old, to mention Nanni Moretti) move the hands of the time back thirty years. But they revisit the past with the maturity of their fifty years. “Stand by me”, “Cast No Shadow”, “Slide Away”. In front of 75 thousand fans of all ages that are unleashed on the notes of those intergenerational hymns that have consecrated Oasis as a phenomenon not only musical, but also of costume (the Adidas stores in the main cities of the United Kingdom have been stormed in these days after the German brand that characterized the style of the Gallagher in the 90s has put it for sale dedicated to the reunion, among the color of the reunion – Manchester City, the team of the heart of Noel and Liam – Style football uniform, parka and anything else), the last act of a Hegelian dialectic is carried out: the synthesis.

“Live Forever”, after two hours of show, starts the credits (with a tribute to Diogo Jota, the Liverpool footballer who died last Thursday in a terrible accident), before the closure entrusted to the triptych “Don’t look back in Angers”, “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova”. In a live summer in which a hint to the ongoing wars it seems a practically obliged passage in concerts, and often also forced, they don’t need to say who knows what. Their peace, which seemed unthinkable and unimaginable until a year ago, and which is sealed by the final embrace, is the testimony of the fact that there are no unrelated conflicts. Just don’t look at the past with anger.