Further comment: this is a fucking dream.
I prefer Noel's (solo) music on record but Liam is my hero and by far the best live performer I've ever seen - been said a million times on here by all sorts of posters but I can't believe I'm sitting here writing about a Liam mega outdoor show. I thought that brand of madness had gone with Noel in 2009.
Bring it on!
It's clear as day how much a new generation (my generation - I'm 22, but people younger as well) who have grown up without the 'stigma' of Oasis, and just have the music.
It's being mentioned before by Noel, how he noticed that a new wave of fans first came along during the 2005/06 tour, and that happened again in 2015.
When Oasis split, it was huge, obviously, but not a surprise and let's be honest, in terms of stature they were just seen as 'another' band.
In 2010 and 2011, when Beady Eye came back, they were a poor man's copy, and Noel's solo stuff - while class - did not really draw too much of a new audience (the exception to this being 'What A Life' - partly down to its use in the England advert for the 2012 Euros).
Throw forward 3 years, and Beady Eye split. Liam is dressing and looking like a washed-up rocker and goes off into what we all feared would be a premature retirement.
The DM and WTSMG reissues start to see that Oasis name back in the spotlight. Noel leaves it 4 years to release his second album, but even so he sells out his tour and is now a festival headliner.
Throw that forward to 2016 though, and everything steps up a gear.
The announcement of Supersonic was huge, followed up by the BHN re-issue. It's everything the die-hard fans wanted but equally, when Supersonic comes out, it puts Oasis right back in the public eye and, most importantly, it presents them in a good light, at the peak of their powers.
When I first got properly into Oasis, I was 15. It was 2010. I'd always had the hits (my dad had put Stop The Clocks album on my iPod nano/touch (remember them!?) so there were fleeting moments that they'd come on shuffle, but from 2005-2009, my band was Green Day - in that they were the biggest guitar band in the world and while I'm not and will never be a punk, they were the band that introduced me to guitar music).
I listened to 'Turn Up The Sun' - for some bizarre reason - and was just like 'fuck me this is amazing'. And then I delved straight in. I love the Beatles, and they were always there in the background as my dad was and is obsessed, but Oasis opened me up properly to music.
But, back in 2010/11, Oasis weren't cool. They were just that band with the arguing brothers who had split up. A few others had got into them, but I remember my mates taking the piss at how excited I was at Noel's first album coming out and going to see him as my first 'proper' gig at 16. It was hard to explain to them just how big Oasis were, and for many people who weren't die-hard fans, that wasn't made clear until Supersonic came out.
Even up until September last summer, when I'd gone to see bands such as Arctic Monkeys, Catfish & the Bottlemen (great live, meh records), Kasabian (boss live, meh records) and (reluctantly, as my friend thinks they're the best thing since sliced bread) The Courteeners, I'd had to put up with comments from people saying - 'these can be as big as Oasis'.
I'd laugh them off, and they wouldn't get it.
Even a close friend who is a big Oasis fan - I don't think he was convinced of how big they were until that film came out.
I was sat in the cinema just soaking it up, but also soaking up their reactions.
And now, you've got a whole new crowd of fans aged between 17 - 22/23 (some of whom have been into them for ages, like me, and others who have grown to love them in the last year or two) who would still put Oasis as their favourite and biggest band. A band that has been broke up for 8 years and a band that was at their peak over 20 years ago.
Our generation has never had that big generation-defining album or band. The generation above (people now aged early 30s / late 20s) had other bands - they had the Arctic Monkeys coming through, and Kasabian, and the Libertines. Not the staying power, perhaps, but they had the hype, the excitement. That culminated in AM's release in 2013.
In many ways, as both NG and LG have said, that's very sad. But at the same time, it's great that Liam has caught the coat-tails of this new generation having no current band to identify with, and as such has gone back to the best there was 20 years ago, before streaming and illegal downloads, before YouTube and vlogs and iPhones and social media.
He's come back with a great album that has been marketed brilliantly, and he has just been himself. He tested the waters last year and now can confidently put on a gig that will sell 40,000 out instantly.
Even though Noel's first album stands up above AYW, for me, he couldn't have done that six years ago. The hype wasn't there.
It's a great time for Oasis fans, and you'll see at Finsbury such a great mix of people.
There'll be the old timers ( sorry not sorry
) who are re-living their youth, the ones who first got into Oasis because of their big brothers or sisters back in 2002-2005, and then the kids, who Liam is an icon to now just as he was to the kids 20 years ago.
And after that unintentional essay - and I thank anyone who has read it! - I think i've talked myself into getting tickets