Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger

CinemaSerf

If you are looking for something insightful about just how "Oasis" started, functioned or split up as a band, then you will be disappointed with this. It studiously avoids addressing anything contentious beyond acknowledging through some international news reports the impact of their famous barny in Paris and the subsequent fifteen years during which they didn't speak. Then someone, somewhere, realised that the appetite for nostalgia from the public was huge and they were prepared to pay handsomely to wander down memory lane. Not that this documentary suggests quite such an overtly venal rationale behind their reconciliation, but the opening few scenes at the rehearsals suggest that there is nothing whatsoever affectionate between these two siblings and Liam Gallagher looks about as indifferent to the whole enterprise as possible. Then they head to Cardiff for their first night of the much anticipated and sold-out UK tour and we see what all the fuss is about. Nobody needed to care about their tantrums and strops - what we get is a group of musicians who have ninety-odd thousand people in a closed Millennium Stadium eating out of their hands. There's a minimum of chatter with the audience, just nineteen songs rattled off in quick-fire order that have the place enraptured. Away from the on-stage performances, there are a few comments from fans across the world that illustrate just how global they were and remain, and how capable their stinging, poignant and affecting lyrics still are at addressing issues still pertinent to people, of all ages and classes, almost thirty years after they first churned out their very own vision. What comes across clearly here is that age has certainly matured the pair - especially Liam, and that it has also made them realise that when it comes down to it, there are more things to keep them together than were ever there to drive them apart and you also sense that they are now much more in control of not just the entire operation but also of themselves. In the end, though, this is really just a compendium edit of half dozen of their greatest hits compiled a little like they did for David Bowie's "Moonage Daydream" (2022) by combining contemporary with archive images as they sing and when a crowd that size is yelling "Don't Look Back in Anger" or "Wonderwall!" at you, it definitely makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Like or loathe these two men as people, or even as ambassadors of the often derided and chavvy Mancunian music scene, you cannot possibly fail to appreciate that they - and "Bonehead" provided a soundtrack for a generation that will certainly outlive them and their squabbling. It's a couple of hours that flies by; that definitely benefits from cinema sound and is well worth a watch.