Some might say the Oasis reunion is exciting — not me

Paul Clements, The Independent

This Oasis reunion... I am definitely not mad for it. I can think of a dozen other Nineties bands I’d rather see perform live again. Off the top of my head, in no particular order (and not all Britpop): Elastica, Gene, Kenickie, The Cardigans, Soul II Soul, Jamiroquai, REM, Hole, Cocteau Twins (their final two albums were as good as anything they did in the Eighties), The B-52s (ditto).

How about Deuce, instead? Deuce were great. Never heard of them? Now mostly forgotten, the manufactured mid-Nineties pop band were described by their svengali-like manager Tom Watkins as “2 Unlimited meets Abba”, and their ridiculously catchy first-and-final album has just been re-released as a four-disc box set. Now that’s what I’d call a comeback.

I’m wary that it’s churlish to knock what other people like for the sake of it, but I’m Gen X and so have fewer qualms. It also means I’m old enough to remember “the people’s pop stars”, as Julie Burchill memorably branded Oasis, when they launched as an unabashed Beatles tribute act.

At the height of the so-called “battle of Britpop”; as Oasis famously sparred with Blur for the No 1 spot — a clash of cultures that gripped the nation as well as evening news bulletins — I did my bit and bought “Country House” on CD single. I was emphatically Team Southern Art School Ponces, and was in the mosh pit for Blur’s triumphant 1995 gig at Mile End Stadium. The very idea of attending Oasis’s one-upping mega-shows at Knebworth a year later, for which more than 4 per cent of the entire British population is said to have tried to buy tickets, would have been traitorous.

For my sins, I have seen Oasis perform — not at Knebworth or Glastonbury, but during a Top of the Pops recording. It was 1994, and the band were gearing up for the release of their second album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. After an introduction by excitable TV presenter Chris Evans, the unsmiling Manc meatheads strummed along to “Some Might Say”, their first No 1.

It’s quite the muddy dirge. Liam didn’t so much prowl and scowl around the stage as shuffle awkwardly on the spot. In a pre-digital age, this is what passed for phoning it in. When that TOTP episode was given another airing on BBC Four recently, I caught sight of my younger self, at the front of the stage, my floppy, centre-parted curtains swinging in time. It was not so much a case of “you had to be there” as “you’re probably lucky you weren’t”.

On past performances alone — appearances abandoned amid ongoing spats between Liam and Noel — I can’t imagine next summer’s 14-date stadium tour will outdo Taylor Swift’s Wembley residency for slick professionalism. And if Robbie Williams is invited up on stage for a guest spot, I may do a full-body cringe.

Still, the off-the-scale euphoria we have witnessed surrounding their return proves they can light a match, especially among an ageing generation of working-class blokes who once delighted in being laddish. But what are the chances this long-awaiting return will just fizzle out like a champagne supernova in the sky, whatever that may be? Not all reunions fail to live up to the hype. By sheer coincidence, this Oasis tour was announced 10 years to the day after Kate Bush made her remarkable stage comeback, with her first live shows in 35 years.

The reclusive singer admitted it was her son who suggested she sing live again. It has been suggested that one compelling factor in Oasis’s unexpected reunion may be Noel’s costly recent divorce after 12 years of marriage. There’s an honesty in doing it for the money: when John Cleese was forced back on the road to scrape together a multimillion-pound settlement for his ex-wife, he called it his “Alimony Tour”.

I still can’t shake the feeling that the combustible Gallagher brothers don’t have it in them to go the full distance. The band broke up in 2009 — not amid artistic differences but personal ones, after Liam and Noel traded blows as they prepared to go on stage at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris. Let’s see if they can get through rehearsals without decking each other or storming out in a brotherly huff. But I won’t bank on it.