Welcome back to Books With Cause. Let’s dive straight into my latest review. This one essentially serves as the second of a two-parter, following on from my last review. This book is subtitled as: The rise, fall, and resurrection of Oasis.
I always planned to read Supersonic and Live Forever back-to-back. It was just a case of when. Both of them were presents for my birthday in September. They’re both lovely hardback editions, and I didn’t want to take them to work with me out of fear of them getting damaged, so I’d been waiting for a time when I was off work, and I knew I could fit them both in. That turned out to be this Easter break. In both cases, it was far enough removed from the tour last year that all the memories and the nostalgia came back. And I found myself falling in love with the band all over again for the umpteenth time.
John Robb is a musician and music journalist. He has been a member of bands such as the Membranes and Goldblade. He’s written countless articles and books. He was there. He knows Liam and Noel. He was present during parts of the Morning Glory album. This may be an unauthorised biography, but there’s a quote by Noel Gallagher on the front that says: “All of this is true”. And that’s good enough for me. There’s also a video available on YouTube where Robb interviews Noel Gallagher to mark the 30th anniversary of Definitely Maybe. It’s a half hour that’s worth anybody’s time.
While Supersonic finishes after the Knebworth gigs in 1996, in Live Forever, Robb covers everything. The first half of the book covers what Supersonic covers, so all of that was fresh in my mind as I read these back-to-back. What I didn’t know is that, in hindsight, Noel believes that Oasis should have split – or at least taken a break – after Knebworth because it could never get any bigger or better than that. But instead they carried on, and it’s the two albums that followed (Be Here Now and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants) that divide a lot of fans. In a way, that’s the period that Robb refers to as the fall of Oasis. The period when Bonehead and Guigsy left, leaving Noel and Liam as the only remaining founding members.
The resurrection marks what’s been referred to as Oasis 2.0. This is the period when I first became a fan of Oasis. Heathen Chemistry was the first album I bought. Gem Archer and Andy Bell were already members and were contributing to the songwriting. At the time, I naively believed that’s how it had always been.
Every album gets its own chapter in this book. Every song and most of the B-sides are covered in detail, and that’s the kind of juicy and nerdy stuff that I loved about this book. I understand that it won’t necessarily be for everyone, but I could have devoured more of it.
I also enjoyed the fact that this book covered the final albums in detail, too. Don’t Believe the Truth was the first to feature Zak Starkey (son of Ringo Starr) on drums and really showcased Noel, Liam, Gem, and Andy all showing their songwriting prowess. Then it all comes to an end with Dig Out Your Soul, its associated tour, which saw the relationship between the Gallagher brothers at the worst it’s ever been. This book covers that night in Paris with the backstage fight that led to Noel leaving the band minutes before they were due to take to the stage.
And that’s how it remained for fifteen years until the reunion was announced in the summer of 2024. This book just about covers the announcement, but finishes with a look ahead, as I suppose the deadline must’ve been before the tour actually started.
There’s a slight overuse of buzzwords in this book. I lost count of how many times I read the phrases “wall of sound” and “Sex Beatles” to describe the two signature things that make Oasis instantly memorable and iconic. But I really am nitpicking at that stage, they probably are the two best phrases that sum up the band the best.
I would recommend both books to all Oasis fans, but if you’re only going to read one, it should be this one. It covers the highs and lows and everything between. This brings us to a final anecdote to wrap up this review.
During the Live 25 I went to two of the Wembley shows, and at one of the shows I got chatting to a man who was around late fifties to early sixties. He was a fairly plump man with little hair on top and missing a few teeth. He wore a red T-shirt with a USSR logo on it. Lord knows how much he’d had to drink, but he was having the absolute time of his life. After the fireworks of Champagne Supernova, the calm at the end of the storm, and the stadium started to empty out. He turned to me and said, “That was absolutely amazing. Out of this world. They were on time. They were reliable. And it didn’t always used to be that way.”
There we were. Now here we are.
My Goodreads rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars)
