Ah, the Oasis reunion – or as the chattering classes might call it, if they could be bothered to notice, a seismic eruption from the cultural underbelly that's left the posh left-wing overlords clutching their pearls and their pronouns in equal measure. Picture it: Wembley Stadium, that vast concrete coliseum, packed to the rafters with 90,000 souls – not the usual suspects of soy-latte-sipping activists, mind you, but proper working-class Brits, the kind who remember when rock 'n' roll was about anthems, not apologies. Brendan O'Neill, that sharp-tongued scribe from Spiked, captures the scene in his dispatch as "the joyous roar of a forgotten people," and one can't help but chuckle at the understatement. It's more like a triumphant fart in the face of the elite's endless sermon on diversity and doom.
Let's rewind the tape, shall we? Oasis, those snarling sons of Manchester's mean streets, the Gallagher brothers – Noel the cerebral one, Liam the loutish id – burst onto the scene three decades ago with Definitely Maybe in August 1994, followed hot on the heels by What's the Story (Morning Glory)? a year later. These weren't albums; they were declarations of war against the grey drizzle of British life, pumping out hits that lodged themselves in the national psyche like stubborn earworms. "Wonderwall," "Don't Look Back in Anger" – tunes that made you feel, for a fleeting moment, that being a lager-swilling northerner was the pinnacle of human achievement. The band imploded in acrimony, as these things do, but fast-forward to August 2024, and lo! The prodigal siblings reconcile, announcing a reunion tour that has morphed into the Summer of Oasis, complete with Wembley extravaganzas earning five-star reviews for their sheer, unadulterated brilliance.
The public reaction? Pure, unfiltered ecstasy. O'Neill describes the crowd as "blubbing like muppets into warm, overpriced beers," a sea of bucket hats and belly laughs, strangers embracing as if the Prodigal Son himself had returned with a pint in each hand. No wonder: in an era where pop music has been hijacked by what O'Neill delightfully dubs "double-barrelled knobs who mistake having a mental disorder for a personality," Oasis offers a return to normalcy. No Palestine flags fluttering like guilty consciences, no trans flags waving in the wind of wokery, no stage-side soliloquies on climate catastrophe or the sacredness of gender fluidity. Just the music, mate – as Noel himself advises aspiring bands: "Play your fucking tunes and get off." It's a philosophy that could use a memo to the ruling class, those self-appointed guardians of the progressive faith who treat every gig like a TED Talk on tolerance.
And herein lies the real satire, the delicious disdain that drips from this tale like condensation from a pub window. The left-wing elite – oh, those bien-pensant mandarins in their Islington townhouses, forever fretting over Islamophobia sob stories or drag queens in primary schools – have spent years airbrushing the working class out of the picture. They're too busy waging war on the gender binary or the Jewish state to notice that the real forgotten people, the fat, drunk, and rowdy ones (as some leaked Edinburgh City Council briefing so charmingly put it), have been reduced to bit-part villains in their endless dramas. Liam Gallagher's riposte to that council nonsense? "You’re ‘fucking slags’ who should ‘leave town’ when we’re playing." Priceless. It's the kind of blunt nationalism that the elites decry as "dangerous," yet here it is, roaring back in the form of sold-out stadiums and singalongs that hark back to a Britain unashamed of its roots.
O'Neill nails it when he argues that this Oasismania is no mere nostalgia trip – though God knows, nostalgia itself has been pathologized by the high priests of progress, from Michel Barnier's warnings of its perils to scholarly tomes like Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion. No, this is revolutionary: a reclamation of working-class pride against the "Year Zero lunacy" of the cultural commissars who disdain history, heritage, and anything that smells of the common man. In a nation swept by conservative nationalism – think Brexit's lingering afterglow, or the quiet rebellion against the elites' imported obsessions – Oasis cements it all. It's the joyous roar of a people tired of being lectured by the left's upper-middle-class neuroses, those invented oppressions that never quite reach the factory floor or the football terrace. Working-class Brits, side-lined in TV ads and left-wing campaigns alike, are suddenly front and centre, belting out lyrics that affirm their unapologetic Britishness.
One watches this unfold with a sardonic grin, doesn't one? The Gallagher brothers, those foul-mouthed avatars of Mancunian machismo, have unwittingly (or wittingly, who knows?) become standard-bearers for a conservatism that's less about tweed and tea than pride in the everyday empire of pints and parka jackets. The left-wing ruling class, ever the architects of their own irrelevance, can only tut from the side-lines, wondering how their grand narrative of grievance got drowned out by a chorus of "Live Forever." In the end, Oasis isn't just reuniting; it's reminding Britain that the real revolution is in rediscovering the roar of its own forgotten heart. And if that cements a wave of conservative nationalism sweeping the sceptred isle? Well, pass the bucket hat – it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of overlords.
Let's rewind the tape, shall we? Oasis, those snarling sons of Manchester's mean streets, the Gallagher brothers – Noel the cerebral one, Liam the loutish id – burst onto the scene three decades ago with Definitely Maybe in August 1994, followed hot on the heels by What's the Story (Morning Glory)? a year later. These weren't albums; they were declarations of war against the grey drizzle of British life, pumping out hits that lodged themselves in the national psyche like stubborn earworms. "Wonderwall," "Don't Look Back in Anger" – tunes that made you feel, for a fleeting moment, that being a lager-swilling northerner was the pinnacle of human achievement. The band imploded in acrimony, as these things do, but fast-forward to August 2024, and lo! The prodigal siblings reconcile, announcing a reunion tour that has morphed into the Summer of Oasis, complete with Wembley extravaganzas earning five-star reviews for their sheer, unadulterated brilliance.
The public reaction? Pure, unfiltered ecstasy. O'Neill describes the crowd as "blubbing like muppets into warm, overpriced beers," a sea of bucket hats and belly laughs, strangers embracing as if the Prodigal Son himself had returned with a pint in each hand. No wonder: in an era where pop music has been hijacked by what O'Neill delightfully dubs "double-barrelled knobs who mistake having a mental disorder for a personality," Oasis offers a return to normalcy. No Palestine flags fluttering like guilty consciences, no trans flags waving in the wind of wokery, no stage-side soliloquies on climate catastrophe or the sacredness of gender fluidity. Just the music, mate – as Noel himself advises aspiring bands: "Play your fucking tunes and get off." It's a philosophy that could use a memo to the ruling class, those self-appointed guardians of the progressive faith who treat every gig like a TED Talk on tolerance.
And herein lies the real satire, the delicious disdain that drips from this tale like condensation from a pub window. The left-wing elite – oh, those bien-pensant mandarins in their Islington townhouses, forever fretting over Islamophobia sob stories or drag queens in primary schools – have spent years airbrushing the working class out of the picture. They're too busy waging war on the gender binary or the Jewish state to notice that the real forgotten people, the fat, drunk, and rowdy ones (as some leaked Edinburgh City Council briefing so charmingly put it), have been reduced to bit-part villains in their endless dramas. Liam Gallagher's riposte to that council nonsense? "You’re ‘fucking slags’ who should ‘leave town’ when we’re playing." Priceless. It's the kind of blunt nationalism that the elites decry as "dangerous," yet here it is, roaring back in the form of sold-out stadiums and singalongs that hark back to a Britain unashamed of its roots.
O'Neill nails it when he argues that this Oasismania is no mere nostalgia trip – though God knows, nostalgia itself has been pathologized by the high priests of progress, from Michel Barnier's warnings of its perils to scholarly tomes like Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion. No, this is revolutionary: a reclamation of working-class pride against the "Year Zero lunacy" of the cultural commissars who disdain history, heritage, and anything that smells of the common man. In a nation swept by conservative nationalism – think Brexit's lingering afterglow, or the quiet rebellion against the elites' imported obsessions – Oasis cements it all. It's the joyous roar of a people tired of being lectured by the left's upper-middle-class neuroses, those invented oppressions that never quite reach the factory floor or the football terrace. Working-class Brits, side-lined in TV ads and left-wing campaigns alike, are suddenly front and centre, belting out lyrics that affirm their unapologetic Britishness.
One watches this unfold with a sardonic grin, doesn't one? The Gallagher brothers, those foul-mouthed avatars of Mancunian machismo, have unwittingly (or wittingly, who knows?) become standard-bearers for a conservatism that's less about tweed and tea than pride in the everyday empire of pints and parka jackets. The left-wing ruling class, ever the architects of their own irrelevance, can only tut from the side-lines, wondering how their grand narrative of grievance got drowned out by a chorus of "Live Forever." In the end, Oasis isn't just reuniting; it's reminding Britain that the real revolution is in rediscovering the roar of its own forgotten heart. And if that cements a wave of conservative nationalism sweeping the sceptred isle? Well, pass the bucket hat – it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of overlords.