Oasis Reunion: Will Noel and Liam’s Feud Cost Millions?

When the moment comes – scheduled for 8.15pm at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium today – it will surely be instantly iconic.

Brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher will appear on stage together for the first time in 16 years after one of the nastiest feuds in pop history.

We shall find out soon enough if the enormously-hyped return of Oasis actually lives up to its billing – and if those expensive tickets deliver anything more than just a blast of nostalgia.

Indeed the money-spinning reunion of the warring Gallaghers comes freighted with many questions, the most significant of which is also the most simple: will we be witnessing a reconciliation of two people who have caused themselves – and their families – half a lifetime of pain? Or is this merely a reunion for the money?

For the sibling rivalry here is so epic, so deep-rooted and so public, that it has even seeded a hit single, Wibbling Rivalry, which was 14 minutes of the brothers arguing with each other recorded during an interview with a music magazine in 1995.

More recently there was a book, The Little Book of Oasis Insults. Among the funniest are Noel, 58, describing Liam, 52, as ‘a man with a fork in a world of soup’ and Liam calling his older brother ‘a stalker potato… who has his arm around Bono’.

Other, more serious barbs delivered by Liam have questioned the paternity of Noel’s beloved daughter Anais. You have to wonder: can that kind of insult ever be forgiven?

As Noel observed in the 2016 documentary Oasis: Supersonic, ‘Oasis’s greatest strength was the relationship between me and Liam [and] it’s also what drove the band into the ground’.

If the start of the tour is actually the start of the brothers patching things up, as so many fans want to believe, what are the chances it will last for all 41 shows?

A senior music business insider tells me: ‘It’s not without precedent for a band who don’t like each other and are not on the same page to get through a tour. If it’s managed very carefully, it can work.

‘What I am hearing is that they will largely travel and party separately on the tour and – given the history – it’s probably wise.’

Reports suggest Noel and Liam will each have their own allocation of free tickets and backstage passes, and will each have celebrations after the gigs with their own guest list.

A source told me: ‘Depending on which brother you got your ticket off, it’s their green room and after-party you’re invited to.’

(Ever the contrarian, Liam posted about the post-show arrangements on X in his characteristically charming style: ‘After party’s are for w*****s. I’m getting straight off after the gigs get my beauty sleep this level of sexiness doesn’t happen by staying up talking bollox to bellends.’)

Liam Gallagher, left, and Noel Gallagher announced their long-awaited reunion tour last year

At stake is a pay day of £50million each. I’m told the deal with the band is structured so they only get paid on completion of all dates, which should concentrate the mind.

In truth, so far Noel and Liam have – professionally at least – have spent next to no time together. Noel and the rest of the band rehearsed for two weeks and were then joined for two part-days by Liam, who with typical swagger believes this was more than adequate. Asked on X this week if he is ‘seriously not nervous’ about the tour, he replied: ‘No, coz I’ve prepared like a CHAMPION.’ To another questioner, he added: ‘We wouldn’t be doing it if we sounded s**t.’

Some fans think they have been quietly spending time together away from the cameras. This is partly true. Over Christmas Noel didn’t go to Liam’s big family celebration in the Cotswolds with their mother Peggy, brother Paul, Liam’s girlfriend Debbie Gwyther and many of their children. However Liam did get a visit from Noel and his two children by ex-wife Sara MacDonald, over Easter, when he tweeted: ‘Biblical easter Sunday. Noel Donavan Sonny popped over.’ It had been great to ‘meet the young guys’, he added, suggesting that this was the first time he had ever seen them. They are aged 17 and 14.

Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean at the University of Winchester, who has written books on music culture, including An Exploration of Hatred in Pop Music: Viva Hate, says: ‘I think they’ll be kept apart. There’s too much money in it for them. Throughout the Eighties, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards hated each other and couldn’t be in the same room.

‘Yet you put them on stage and they’re brilliant. They got through it. Fleetwood Mac fell out the whole time. So this isn’t anything new, but it will be interesting, and it’ll make it that much more special when they actually come on stage together.’

He adds: ‘I think that is the big question – is this a reunion or a reconciliation?

‘The cynic in me says now is a very good time for a reunion. The announcement was pretty much a day after the 30th anniversary of Definitely Maybe, so they were back in the public consciousness anyway. The timing was perfect from a commercial point of view.

‘I think I’m right in saying that both of their last solo albums sold fewer copies than the previous one, so both solo careers are on the wane. Historically that is a big impetus for bands to get back together. The cycle goes: first you break up, then you go solo. Then your solo career falls off, and you get back together.’

Fosbraey adds: ‘On the other hand, the romantic in me says that some years have gone by, everyone’s changed, and they’ve decided they want to write the final chapter of the story for the fans. To have a more elegant finish.’

Noel and singer Liam’s simmering feud boiled over for the last time on August 28, 2009, when the band split ahead of a gig in Paris. But it actually goes back much further. Eldest brother Paul – not in the band – has witnessed it all. He recently indicated that the feuding took off when the brothers were teens, saying: ‘I do my own thing, I stay away from it as much as humanly possible. How many years has it been now, 30? How many times can you say argh, it’s excruciating.’

According to mum Peggy, 81, the rivalry dates back even further. She said: ‘Noel was absolutely beautiful as a baby and then of course Liam comes along and it takes the limelight off him. You could tell the disagreement was there with them. I’m glad they could be a band together. I wouldn’t have wanted Liam in a band without Noel.’

Liam says it started in earnest when the pair were teenagers and shared a bedroom. He said: ‘I came home p***ed and couldn’t find the light switch so I p***ed all over his new stereo. He holds a grudge.’ Noel was the more successful of the two at that point, working as a roadie for Manchester band Inspiral Carpets while Liam was on the dole, fence building and working in a garden centre.

Liam and Noel smiling together as children in matching knitted jumpers

Then Liam founded a band with friends – and Noel was shocked to discover his younger brother had bags of on-stage charisma and was working hard. He joined and became the chief songwriter.

From this point on, there was a power struggle over who ran Oasis – the creative powerhouse Noel or the swaggering frontman who electrified audiences. Noel said: ‘It’s about me being in charge and everybody directing everything towards me and Liam being p***ed off about it. That’s what starts it all.’

The band was infamously volatile. Their personalities, their colossal success and their mutual tastes for cocaine and alcohol proved an explosive mixture. Nobody partied harder than the Oasis boys – just ask Liam’s first wife, actress Patsy Kensit, pictured karate kicking his car in 1999 after he had a liaison in London’s Met Bar with Kate Moss.

Indeed, within weeks of their wedding he had – unknown to Kensit – fathered a daughter, Molly, with singer Lisa Moorish.

Oasis were signed to Creation Records in 1993 and the following year released their first album Definitely Maybe, followed in 1995 by the era-defining best seller (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? Noel was given a Rolls Royce by the record company in honour of his hero John Lennon. Liam was given a watch. Noel later said: ‘Liam got a Rolex. I got a Rolls-Royce. Which is brilliant, ‘cos I can’t drive and Liam can’t tell the time.’ Their first number one single, Some Might Say, came out in 1995 and their legendary gig at Knebworth was in 1996. There was a huge falling out in 2000 when Liam apparently questioned the legitimacy of Noel’s then baby daughter Anais with Meg Mathews and Noel left for the remainder of a European tour.

They finally split in 2009, with Noel issuing a statement: ‘It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer. The level of verbal and violent intimidation towards me, my family, friends and comrades has become intolerable.’

Liam admitted his drinking had played a part. ‘That was my behaviour since day one, and Noel’s. That’s what made Oasis what it was. I wasn’t any different, but all of a sudden, he’s turned into Ronan Keating or some soft ****, going: “We can’t have that behaviour.”’

Years of deep freeze followed.

Noel didn’t join Liam when Oasis won best British album at the Brit Awards in 2010, and Liam didn’t mention his brother on stage.

Liam was not invited to Noel’s 2011 wedding to MacDonald. Asked later that year if he might reunite with Noel for a 20th anniversary celebration of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, Liam said: ‘I’d rather eat my own **** than be in a band with him again. He’s a miserable little f***.’

In 2013 Liam said he loved ‘our kid’, but despised ‘band Noel’. Asked about a reunion, Noel told the NME: ‘One can never say never, because one might be skint. But I’ve got no intention. I’m not interested.’

Three years later, asked if Noel might attend the premiere of the documentary Oasis: Supersonic, Liam said: ‘Oh no, Noel won’t be here. He’s in one of his really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really big houses. Probably eating tofu while having a face peel. Isn’t that right, man of the people?’

The following year relations reached rock bottom. MacDonald, Noel’s wife, said she wouldn’t watch Liam – ‘a fat t*** doing his tribute act’ – at Glastonbury, and Liam then apparently sent a message to Noel’s daughter Anais which said: ‘Tell your step mam to be very careful.’ Liam later apologised for ‘childish behaviour’, but Noel said in an interview: ‘That’s not the first time he’s sent texts to my daughter, or left threatening phone calls on my wife’s answering machine.

‘So when he’s threatening my wife via my teenage daughter, I’m thinking, you know, if you weren’t a rock star, if you were just an uncle who worked in a garage, you’d be getting a visit from the police.’

He added: ‘I’ve got one fatal flaw in my otherwise perfect makeup as a human being, which is I don’t forgive people. Once you start texting my children – and his two sons have been going for her, too – and legitimise my wife being bullied on the internet, where she has to shut down Instagram accounts because of the vile **** being written about her and my daughter, then it ain’t happening.’

So what changed? Perhaps the beginning of the thaw can be traced back to Noel’s divorce from MacDonald in January 2023.

Aided by Liam’s romance with Gwyther, his former PA, some kind of peace deal was hammered out between the brothers. It appears Noel’s daughter Anais, now 25, played a big part in getting the band back together, too, having forged a bond with Liam’s kids Gene, 24, Lennon, 25, and Molly, 27. And mum Peggy may have been instrumental too.

Fosbraey says: ‘Perhaps now that Noel is coming up for 60, they’ve realised that life is short. Their mum is a great age and she has played a great part in getting them back together.

‘Maybe they thought that the time had come to bury the hatchet. Or maybe they just decided they would be more commercially successful together.’ He adds: ‘If the reconciliation is authentic, if they really can spend time together again, then perhaps there’ll be a new album, too.’

That seems unlikely, however, with the band’s manager, Alec McKinlay, saying in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine earlier this year: ‘There’s no plan for any new music.

‘This is very much the last time around, as Noel’s made clear. It’s a chance for fans who haven’t seen the band to see them, or at least for some of them to.’

When it comes to the fans, indeed, we’re on much surer ground. Beloved in the 1990s as the rock ‘n’ roll foil to art school bands like Blur and Suede, Oasis still inspire huge loyalty.

Backstage fisticuffs or not, this summer thousands will celebrate the brothers who provided the snarling, anthemic, soundtrack to their youth.