‘A Little Extra Crazy:’ In Wake Of Oasis’ Toronto Show, Industry Gets Swept Up In Mania

“It is very special and unexpected for many. The show is exactly what it should be,” Live Nation’s Arthur Fogel, president of global touring and chairman of concerts, shared with Pollstar. The promoter for the entire Oasis Live ‘25 global run just returned from the two Dublin shows, “among others,” he says. “The show is brilliant.”

On Sunday, the English rock band, which has sold 75 million albums worldwide — thanks to hit after hit like “Supersonic,” “Live Forever,” “Wonderwall,” “Don’t Look Back In Anger,” “Champagne Supernova” and “Morning Glory” — begin the North American leg of their tour in Toronto with a pair of sold-out shows, Aug. 24-25, at the 50,000-capacity Rogers Stadium, in the north end of the city.

Joining Liam and Noel Gallagher, frontman and guitarist/songwriter respectively, are guitarists Gem Archer and Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, bassist Andy Bell, new drummer Joey Waronker plus keyboardist Christian Madden, and horn section, Alastair White, Joe Auckland and Steve Hamilton. The setlist — roughly half coming from the band’s first two albums, 1994’s breakthrough debut, Definitely Maybe, and 1995’s (What’s The Story) Morning Glory — has remained unchanged. 

Announced last summer, the long-wished-for, ghost-of-a-chance Oasis reunion of the battling brothers — who broke up the band Aug. 28, 2009, after a backstage fight at Rock en Seine festival in Paris — kicked off triumphantly, arm in arm, July 4-5 in Cardiff, Wales, at the 74,500-capacity Principality Stadium and concluded — without any walk-offs or guitar-swinging incidents — Aug. 16-17 in Dublin at the 80,000-capacity Croke Park. 

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In between, were five shows in the lads’ hometown of Manchester at the 80,000-cap. Heaton Park, by all accounts a complete city-takeover of Oasis mania from themed drinks to billboards, and a sea of fans in band tees and bucket hats, then five shows at the 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium with another two dates scheduled in September.   

Noel who often talks about their meteoric rise from “lads from a council estate” to the “best band in the world,” literally in two years — August 1994 when they released Definitely Maybe to two shows at Knebworth, in August 1996, before 125,000 people a night — recently did an interview with UK’S talkSPORT radio and, of course, was asked about the reunion after 15 years.

“Yeah, completely blown away. Everyone is. It’s difficult to put it into words actually,” he said. “Every night is the crowd’s first night, do you know what I mean? So every night’s got that same energy to it. But it’s been truly amazing. I’m not usually short for words, but I can’t really articulate it.”

A reported 14 million people from 158 countries tried to access the 1.4 million tickets available for the 17 shows, promoted by the Live Nation-associated SJM Concerts, MCD Promotions and DF Concerts, so the privilege of attending the history-making tour is not lost on the ticketholders.

In North America, after a UK dynamic pricing and resale uproar when fans were unable to get tickets at initial onsale, Oasis is limiting tickets to face value fan-to-fan exchange only. They also just released a message that after “sight lines are checked and the production is fine tuned,” Oasis promoters are releasing “a very limited number of additional tickets.”

Pollstar talked with three diehard Oasis fans from the music industry who flew over from the U.S. and Canada for the shows at considerable expense.

Matt Pike, co-founder of Los Angeles-based boutique talent agency 33 & West (clients ranging from Napalm Death to Engelbert Humperdinck), who has six Oasis tattoos and 30 T-shirts, kept saying there were “no words” to capture what it meant to be there and take his family, well aware of his obsession.

“I went to go see them for three nights in London,” Pike says. “I took my kids the last night, and that was an unbelievable experience. My daughter is 22, my son’s 18, and for us to be able to share that, I’ll even cry thinking about it. I’ve been to a lot of shows in my life, being in the music business, but Oasis at Wembley, nothing can compare to what we witnessed. From the crowd, the singalongs, the band, the production, everything. It was on another level. I can’t even put it into words.”  The same day, Pike was taking his wife Andrea to get her first tattoo, “live forever,” which his kids have too.

“I grew up in the punk rock hardcore scene, but I was always drawn towards British culture and British rock, but in ‘94 when Definitely, Maybe, came out, I was working at a college radio station and from the first listen, and every record ever since then, something that has just clicked with me and stayed with me.  It’s not just about music, It’s about the culture, the look, the swagger, the attitude of the brothers.”

Billy Jensen, a former music journalist turned true crime podcast and New York Times best-selling author, first saw Oasis play at New York’s Beacon Theater in 2002. When the reunion was announced, determined to score tickets, he had three computers set up, along with his phone, “trying to get anything” for any of the shows. He snagged tickets for Cardiff and Manchester.

“I wanted to see it there because they mean so much to British people of my age, of Gen X.  I love Manchester. I’m a Manchester City [football] fan partly because of Oasis and I have so many different relationships from that fan group, and I wanted to see the show with people who felt the same way about the band that I did,” says Jensen, who has found a brotherhood and bigger sense of purpose through his love for Oasis.

“With our men’s mental health crisis that’s going on right now, men need each other. The show is probably 80% men. The first show I went to in Cardiff, I didn’t see one drunk person and I’m sober, so I usually look out for that, just to see if anybody needs help. What I did see was a lot of guys hugging each other and crying. I saw myself hugging strangers, as well as my mate who I had brought with me. We’ve been friends and Oasis fans for years. Just so much positive energy.”

Jensen made a Manchester City shirt with the “Acquiesce” lyric “we need each other” on the back, as well as a jersey with the word sunshine on it, spelled “sunsheeeiiine” to mimic the way Liam sings the word. “I saw two other guys that had that too. We started talking and they’re from Switzerland and now they want me to come visit. I’m connected now with 20 to 25 people from the show. It was just an incredibly positive experience meeting a ton of people that are inviting me to different places.”

Toronto’s Gillian Zulauf, an event producer for arts and culture, was up with her friends at 4 a.m. trying to get tickets and never told them she spent the equivalent of her mortgage payment to buy them all “exhibition” tickets because that was all that was available after dynamic pricing kicked in. The package included access to the memorabilia exhibition and a swag box containing an Oasis football scarf, guitar pick and keychain.  “I basically lied to them and told them we got the normal tickets, and then I just dropped all those dollars,” she says, with no regrets.

She was particularly impressed with how the city of Manchester organized shuttles from the city to the venue, Heaton Park. Bee Network [integrated public transportation system] had branded buses. They did an excellent job of logistical execution of a large-scale production.”

Zulauf is going to the Toronto show, maybe both, and wonders if she will feel the same as seeing them in Manchester for the first time. 

“I was listening to Oasis yesterday and I started getting a little emotional because we were at Manchester and none of us cried. We’d been waiting so long and Manchester was an entire experience. It was Biblical. It was ridiculous. It was like everybody was your best friend. I’ve never felt that at a concert. It was next level because it’s a cultural moment too.

“They were on stage and then it was happening, there was so much joy,” Zulauf said. “I feel like I was in shock seeing a band I never thought I would ever see again on stage in England, in Manchester, and now that we’re going to Toronto, I’m starting to get emotional. I think I might actually cry in Toronto because the shock has worn off. It’s gonna be a totally different experience.”

Fans have been lining up for merch at the pop-up shop in downtown Toronto for Oasis clothing and accessories, limited edition items and exclusive brand collabs; out-of-towners have been on Oasis fan groups organizing meet-ups at pubs; there will also be an exhibition for VIP ticket holders; and available to everyone is the online Live ’25 Map Experience populated with markers and information on the band’s historic gigs in the city, including their very first at Lee’s Palace, Oct. 19, 1994.

“And at the time, 500 people was a big deal for me, for bands, for everybody,” recalls that show’s promoter, Elliott Lefko, who was working for MCA Concerts at the time and is now VP of Goldenvoice Concerts, not related to the current tour.  “They were just a big British band starting off, but at the time there were so many of those bands that were coming through like Blur, Suede, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Inspiral Carpets. It was such a rich time where you’d hear about all these bands because of the NME, the word would spread. 

“So if you look back, it may not seem like such a big deal, but if they could sell that out, it was really the beginning of the journey,” Lefko says. “So everybody was very happy, everyone was very excited, and when they got here, they were a great band. They had a swagger about them, and they were maybe more of a working man’s band than Blur. Oasis had that English swagger. 

“The British bands would always do so well in Toronto. They would be a few steps ahead of the way it was in the U.S., and then I got to do some bigger shows with them.”

After Toronto, Oasis plays Chicago’s Soldier Field; two in East Rutherford, N.J., at MetLife Stadium; two at Pasadena, Calif.’s Rose Bowl. Then, it’s on to Mexico City, back to London, then three weeks off before hitting South Korea, Japan, Australia, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, concluding Nov. 23 after a pair of shows in São Paulo at the 72,000-capacity MorumBIS.

Dan Trevethan, owner of UK’s Piglove Brewing, saw one of the Manchester shows and has flown into Toronto with his brother to see the show with his pals in the multi-platinum Canadian band Billy Talent. His first-ever concert at 16 was Oasis in 1995 at Manchester’s since demolished Maine Road stadium and he’s seen Oasis in Europe and Asia,and is thinking of seeing them in South America.

“There’s a lot of talk in the world about Nostalgia Rock, but it felt more than nostalgia. I go to a bunch of shows and it felt different to anything I’ve been in or seen in a long time. It was friends coming together. Obviously, you’ve got that nostalgia piece from when you were a kid, but then new fans come in and just seeing the mix of old and young and hardly any phones out and everyone just having a great time, it’s really difficult to describe, but the comedown was pretty epic.”

After Toronto, he’s considering going to South America, “and I’ve completed life,” he says with a hint of a laugh.

“Part of the intrigue is how different places, different countries, are gonna join into the mania.  I think once you go to the show, you can’t help but get caught up in the crazies,” Trevethan said. “Do I think the Torontonians are going to act like Manchester people? Probably not, but that’s probably a good thing. Honestly, I don’t think you can help but get swept up in it. It’s just culturally, crowds act differently in most countries and Brits are a little extra crazy for Oasis.”