Words by JANE CROWTHER
For someone who admits he talks a lot of crap, Liam Gallagher, lairy frontman of Oasis, makes a lot of sense. Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s documentary charts the 2025 reformation world tour of warring brothers, Liam and Noel, might as well be called The Gospel According To Saint Liam such is the almost religious experience captured on film, the message of forgiveness, and redemption that runs throughout it – and the unwittingly profound nature of Liam’s typically blunt life advice. As music docs go it’s a proper supernova – frequently moving, uplifting and promising to send fans and non-acolytes alike out of cinemas on a post-gig high.
For those not up to speed on the Oasis story, Southern and Lovelace (along with creator Steven Knight) whip through the rise and fall of ‘Britain’s biggest band since the Beatles’ via grainy archive footage of the Gallaghers tearing up the music scene before tearing strips from each other. A quick skim through to 2009’s implosion in Paris leaves us 15 years later when the brothers are planning their global reunion tour and Noel is rehearsing the band alone with no sign of his singer. Liam is a spectre in this initial grounding back into the Gallagher world. Noel calls him a ‘fucking pain in the arse’ and waits for him to turn up, a drum thuds a steady beat and a door flies open. Liam struts in with barely a nod, puts his hands behind his back and begins to sing in a manner he describes as exorcism. Swearing off the cigarette and alcohol for the tour, he sucks on a straw and performs ‘like he did years ago’ according to his impressed brother. When he’s done singing, Liam stalks back out.
Noel admits to having a newfound respect for his younger sibling and it’s this new humility, nostalgia for the past and the mileage between them that shapes the rest of the documentary as we watch the band make their nervous debut in Cardiff to an audience of multigeneration fans, before tracking their greatest hits via gigs around the globe. Though the trick is repeated at every new stop, the cultural, sociological, political and socio-economic impact of Oasis is explored via the booming tunes and the emotive reactions of the fans to their resurrection. One man kneels as though in prayer, a young boy weeps in ecstasy, a local vicar uses his sermon to describe the thronging of people to the stadium as pilgrimage and a shared longing for healing. One doesn’t have to be an Oasis fan to understand the feeling of community and communion felt during an electrifying gig with fellow fans, and Southern and Lovelace capture that magic via fond concert camerawork and by building individual portraits that humanise the sea of faces.
The Gallaghers get some scrutiny as people rather than artists, with Noel chatting for most of the first half before spiky Liam comes around. By the time the tour is in full flow and the film has crescendoed in its set list to the biggies, the brothers are bantering together, calling themselves a ‘shower of cunts’ and admitting to being delighted by each other, their once-strangers children now boozy besties who get ‘spangled’ while their Dad’s go to bed. If the Gallaghers have mellowed their music hasn’t, with rhythm guitarist Bonehead back in the fold and the anthemic bangers now firmly part of the cultural landscape. That makes hearing ‘Wonderwall’ or close-out tune ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ feel resonant to any cinemagoer and might bring a nostalgic tear to the eye whether you own a bucket hat or not.
As a document of a band accepting love from each other as well as their audience (and actually rehearsing), Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger showcases a group at the top of their technical game. But where it really wins is in the optimistic and brotherly message it emits to a polarised, angry world. ‘Do your thing, do it well and try to move people, man’ is what Liam says his new vibe is. Mission accomplished, ‘our kid’. (Though the mercurial brothers did skip the press conference in Venice so, you know, it’s still some business as usual.)
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of DISNEY
Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger premiered at the 83rd Venice Film Festival
