Then it could be anything. It could be that Liam Gallagher wants to put aside a little the nostalgia for the nineties that allowed him to gain credit as the last bastion of Britpop, winning the long-distance comparison with his brother Noel, who instead tried to get out of it in every way. Without denying anything, but aware that, as he sings in Oncenot by chance his most successful solo piece, things, in a certain way, happen only once. So let’s move on. It could be that a new album comes out – streaming demands it, needs it – and that it is Noel himself, with the various funk and cosmic pop experiments of recent times, who wins. Forget choirs, airy melodies and slow curves. Forget Supersonic And Don’t look back in anger.

It could be, in short, that the most anticipated reunion of recent years, this one of Oasis, looks to the present. Not that it is a prerogative of bands that get back together, on the contrary. But in the case of an event of such epochal importance – not only in terms of numbers, with concerts that for now seem to move 60 million pounds, but in terms of imagery, with three generations involved up to their feet in the cult, in the world – it is legitimate, perhaps, to expect more. Instead, no: it will be the triumph of the past, really, to the nth degree; singing Wonderwall in a packed stadium like it was 1996, up there Liam with his parka, his tambourine and his hands behind his back, and next to him a melancholic Noel, his guitar and maybe a Union Jack drawn on it. And there won’t be anything wrong with that. I mean: there’s nothing more coherent.

A unique myth

On the other hand, Oasis’ songs have always won by playing on safety rather than on amazement, and the myth of the Gallagher brothers is, in its own way, an exception. For goodness sake, the songs are there, the offspring of a state of grace rare in history and of an at times inexplicable rise. And yet, here they are few: they are almost all in the first two albums, Definitely maybe (1994) and (What’s the story) morning glory? (1995); from the third, Be here now (1997), they would have lost lucidity and contact with reality, with a few flashes and many yawns. For goodness sake, there was enough material to live off the proceeds, but considering that these are great pieces, yes, but again without any great desire for the future – the inspiration was the Beatles, and not by chance in the United Kingdom, whether for a sense of belonging, they are a giant phenomenon, with millions of copies sold – and that in the space of months they have marked an era, of course, but not the history of music, well, isn’t that a small thing for such a huge cult? How did we manage to transform such a brief passage into a chimera, that of the reunion, so enormous?

And here comes the second part. Liam and Noel were, perhaps, the last great rock stars of music, understood as characters. From the very beginning they conveyed a series of values, mainly linked to excess, through their lifestyle, before with their music. Arguments and threats of dissolution were the order of the day, until a more serious shame than the others led them, surprisingly, to suddenly close on August 28, 2009. At that point they were the ones, even unconsciously, to play on it: barbs, low blows, winks that made the return seem at times very close, at times completely absurd. This meant that not only did people not forget the songs, but that the new generations discovered them and developed the desire to, in some way, close the circle, as if they were watching a TV series, inflating expectations beyond measure – there was much more attention on Oasis in these years of absence, for example, than right before the breakup.

Right here, right now

Of course, the Gallaghers suffered first. The ghost of the past tormented them, with Liam who never missed an opportunity to celebrate the past – also to claim the centrality of his role as frontman and the merits, given that the author of almost all the songs was his brother – and Noel who instead experimented with completely different sounds. Two opposite answers, in short, to the same problem.

Then it probably reached the boiling point, all at once. On a personal level, as far as the relationship between brothers is concerned – even if it is not certain that the two have done Really peace, maybe they just started talking again in the name of money and glory – and as for the relationship with the past itself, since reuniting the group is a substantial defeat for what Noel preached and a victory for Liam’s ideas. It’s more of a symbolic gesture, since they had never stopped singing those songs on their own, than anything else.

And then there is the public: the moment is ripe, those who were already there have become sufficiently nostalgic, the millennials who had just smelled them are of an age and purchasing power that allows them to spend, generation zeta must be caught before it’s too late. They will do it with what people ask for, because the key to the success of this reunion is precisely to give the public exactly what they have always wanted, and what they want. So even if it ended in another fight, another 15 years of silence, well, everything would come back.