Oasis reunion: The young fans rebooting the spirit of the 1990s

The BBC’s Anna Doble was 17 when she saw Oasis play at Knebworth. Almost three decades on, she speaks to a new group of young, hardcore – and often female – fans who are drawn to a band who peaked before they were even born.

Jasmine Griffin-Jones, whose prized possession is a Liam Gallagher set list, still can’t believe it’s true. “I was sat in shock for quite a while,” she explains about hearing news of the Oasis reunion.

She is 19 and lives in Widnes in Cheshire, 30 miles west of Burnage, where the Gallagher brothers – Noel and Liam – grew up on the outskirts of Manchester.

Her mum is a fan of fellow Mancunian band the Stone Roses, which could hold a clue to her passion for Oasis. But she also loves Taylor Swift, Charli XCX and – gasp – Britpop rivals Blur.

Half a world away, in St Petersburg, Russia, 23-year-old Yulia Markovskaia stands in her bedroom surrounded by Oasis posters and her own drawings of the band. She is feeling like she might “explode” while frantically trying to work out how to get to one of the UK concerts in 2025.

“I’m going to sob so hard if they sing Acquiesce together,” she says of the fan-favourite song sung by both Gallagher brothers.

This new Oasis scene seems to feature fewer blokes with sideburns, baggy nylon football shirts and those loud burps that follow swiftly-downed cans of Carling. Instead, this 21st Century fanbase congregates more politely on TikTok, Instagram and X, where the hashtag that brings fans, Liam memes, and Bonehead jokes together, is #oasistwt.

It features a near-constant stream of positive speculation and good-natured appreciation of Liam’s beautiful eyebrows. The Spice Girls, Blur and Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker’s pointy fingers make regular appearances too, and there is an overriding sense that these fans would dearly love to be transported back in time to the hot, hazy tambourine summers of the late 1990s.

The thing is, I was there. It was me in the hyperactive queue of bucket hat-wearing teenagers waiting to get into the Oasis concert at Knebworth. It was me listening to Shakermaker on dedicated station Supernova Radio as its opening drum beats wafted from the speakers that lined our route into the park venue. And it was me hoping my Blur T-shirt, beneath a zip-up Adidas top, wasn’t a completely stupid move among 125,000 lagered-up Liam and Noel fans.

I was 16 in 1995, the perfect age for Britpop. I had the ticket stubs on my wall, the shoebox filled with Longpigs and Cast cassettes, and the wannabe Elastica haircut that finally made me look old enough to sit by the pool table in the pub.

My copy of Definitely Maybe was purchased on the £3 stall of my hometown market in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire; a strange illicit version acquired on the cheap, its track listing not quite right.

I later realised I’d stumbled upon a Gulf countries-only edition of the album, where the single Cigarettes & Alcohol was rendered simply “Cigarettes”. I listened anyway, washing down its controlled sense of rage with regular swigs of cider.

I watched Gazza flick the ball over Colin Hendry’s head at Euro 96 while learning Radiohead chords on my left-handed guitar.

And in 1997, I cast my first vote in a general election – one that, like this year, saw a Labour government come to power.

Many at the time felt optimistic about the future.

“It does feel like a bit of a ’90s throwback with the Labour government, Oasis mania, and the recent football final,” says Jasmine about the timing of the Oasis reunion. Her parents, like me, experienced the era first-hand.

“Music has always brought people together and this is what we need right now,” says Emma Arenstarr, from Swanage in Dorset.

The 19-year-old says she felt “absolute elation” when the Oasis comeback gigs – their first for 15 years – became a certainty. She hopes to “finally get the chance” to see her favourite band live.

Like Charlotte, she’s hopeful the relationship between the Gallagher brothers is “finally being mended” and that “the music will remind them of what they love most”.

“All I can say is that if the Gallagher brothers can reunite, after everything that has happened, there’s more than enough hope for the country,” adds 24-year-old Beatrice Steele from Guildford, Surrey. She says the excitement around the reunion “proves that their music is still relevant to the experience of youth”.

“I don’t think there has to be a conflict between nostalgia and new music,” says Andy Walker, singer and guitarist in current Britpop-punk band Attendant.

He describes their debut album as “a Britrock soap opera set in a collapsing society” and thinks there are similarities between the mood of the nation in recent years – frustration followed by creativity and hope – and the way things were in the late 1990s.

High streets are full of 90s rave-era fashions and stonewashed jeans, and Liam’s Lennon-esque sunglasses never really went out of fashion. “The big difference is that the 90s Cool Britannia optimism has been replaced by 21st Century post-Brexit nihilism,” Andy says.

“Britpop itself was 60s revivalism,” he adds. “Oasis were inspired by The Beatles. Blur by The Kinks. They took that inspiration and made it new.

“Now we’re at the same point [after] another 30-year cycle. Bands who grew up with Britpop are turning that influence into something different. Our thing is to mix it with punk and post-hardcore.”

So where do Oasis fans hang out these days? “I always seem to meet them in record stores,” says Emma. “Though most of my friends I’ve met online. Some are my age and some are older. It’s always really great to meet others who share that love.

“I think Oasis fans are just lurking. A lot of them wait for someone to give them ‘the look’. I’ll be buying a CD in a shop and we’ll just look over at each other, suss each other out, and start chatting as if we’ve known each other for years. It’s nice like that.”

This new fandom is united by many of the same things that appealed to Oasis fans in the 1990s – the sense that the naughtiest boys in school have invited us to trash the common room with them, and the simple pleasure of belting out songs that combine both raw power and tender melody.

Slide Away is “so beautiful”, says Yulia. “There is so much emotion in this song and the way Liam sings so passionately just gives me goosebumps every time.”

Jasmine says she first listened to Definitely Maybe five years ago, at the age of 14. She thinks despite the brothers being no strangers to controversy – Liam has used homophobic slurs on Twitter while Noel was criticised for moaning about Jay-Z, a hip-hop artist, headlining Glastonbury – the band’s fans have moved beyond the laddish reputation.

“Now in the fandom, especially on Twitter and at the [Liam solo] gigs, there is large number of women and girls, probably an even split with the males.”

Liam’s younger good looks are a regular source of discussion among this group of fans, but it’s the sense of being in a “club” with other believers that shines through.

At 15, Scarlett Allen, from Kent, not only missed the Britpop years by a lifetime, she was only just born when Oasis were breaking up. It was doing schoolwork at home during the Covid-19 pandemic that allowed her to immerse herself in their songs. She also loves the Stone Roses, Kasabian and Fontaines DC, but it’s Oasis who she keeps coming back to.

“It’s rare finding Oasis fans in real life, especially ones the same age as me,” she explains. “There are a couple of people at school who are big fans, though, and I go to concerts with them as much as possible.”

She saw Liam performing Definitely Maybe in full at the O2 in London in June. “At events like that, you find huge numbers of people just like you.”

The Oasis reunion gigs might just be Scarlett’s Knebworth. She now has months of excitement and anticipation to come. “It feels completely unreal and I didn’t imagine it on this scale.”

Anna Doble is digital editor at BBC World Service and the author of Connection is a Song: Coming Up and Coming Out Through the Music of the ‘90s.