Welcome back to Books With Cause. Let’s dive straight into my latest review. It’s time for some non-fiction of the musical variety.
For me, this story begins in 2001-02, and I must give an honourable mention to an old school friend, Martin Hines. We were in year 7, and I was sitting next to him in an ICT lesson. This was a time when computer monitors were the size of fish tanks. Anyway, he was humming something, and I asked him what it was. “It’s the new Oasis single,” he said. “The Hindu Times.” I’d heard of Oasis, but I wasn’t overly into music back then. That was the day that everything changed.
From there, I was obsessed. I collected every Oasis album and most of the DVDs. I tried to have my hair cut like Liam Gallagher’s, but it never really worked. Nobody can make those hairstyles work as well as Liam can. I was fortunate enough to see Oasis at Wembley in the summer of 2009. Little did I know that a week later they’d split up. Of course, that made the gig extra special for me. I followed the Gallaghers through their subsequent solo careers and the brief period of Beady Eye. While I enjoyed it all, none of it was ever the same as Oasis.
You can imagine my delight when, in 2024, it was announced that Oasis would be reforming for a world tour. I went to see them twice last summer, and that was followed by me being bought a couple of Oasis books for my birthday.
This book serves as a companion piece to the 2016 documentary of the same name. In his introduction to this book, Simon Halfon tells of how he first met Noel in 1994, and they’ve remained friends ever since. It was in 2014 that Noel asked Simon to make a documentary to mark the twentieth anniversary of Oasis’s gigs at Knebworth. One thing led to another, and numerous people were interviewed for the documentary. Noel and Liam both contributed, along with Bonehead (the original guitarist), their mother, Peggie, their brother, Paul, and countless others. Halfon states there was too much interview content for the film, and he thought it was a shame for it to go to waste. So this book comprises of every interview transcribed, uncut, and collected together for the first time ever.
Supersonic tells the story of the Gallagher brothers from their early childhood in Burnage through to forming the band and headlining two sold-out shows at Knebworth in 1996. I already knew most of the story from their abusive father and the fact that Noel and Liam shared a bedroom from a young age. Living in each other’s shadow, along with those other factors, was bound to create a love-hate relationship between the two brothers, and that always created a subplot to the music throughout the entirety of the band’s tenure.
The talking heads style of this song is personally highly effective to me. I can hear their voices in my head, and it makes for an immersive experience when reading a book like this. While this is a non-fiction book, it reminded me a lot of Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Her novel uses the interview format, so I suppose it’s also a testament to her that she was able to pull off a novel in such a convincing way.
Supersonic should be a must-read for all Oasis fans, especially those who have seen the documentary too. This book was published in 2021, so at this point, the band is only ever spoken about in the past tense, and there’s no suggestion that there’ll ever be a reunion. Of course, if we read the book now, it feels like we know something they don’t.
My Goodreads rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars)
