The Power of Nostalgia
It's taken 15 years, but the Gallagher brothers have finally got the band back together. Oasis' reunion tour stands to make at least £400m, which hints at the power of nostalgia.
Since Oasis have announced their reformation, many have reminisced of the band’s heyday; the mid-1990s. Of Britpop, Cool Britannia, cheap booze, video-rental shops, TGIF, finding crisp £5 notes in packets of crisps, and wild, often drug-fuelled, optimism. Most tellingly, there’s the teaser clip which was shared by Liam, Noel, and the band’s socials which preluded the formal confirmation. Its simplicity, the throwback font. Helvetica Black Oblique should simply be renamed the ‘Nineties Oasis font’, as it immediately set minds back to their first two classic albums. Minds were racing of a possible reunion just from using that one font.
The confirmed UK and Ireland 2025 tour represents the first chance for many to see the band live. I can already sense the keen desperation as the clamour ahead of the ticket sale intensifies. Indeed, such is the demand that confirmation emails for a presale ballot were delayed by hours. Lord knows how the internet will cope when tickets go on general sale for the tour on Saturday morning.
It’s a desperation I know well as in 2000, I was determined to see Oasis. Too young to see them a mere ten-minute walk from my home in 1995, at 16 I was ready to make a rock ‘n’ roll dream come true. So I made my way to a field in Leeds for the final date of their Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants UK tour, closing the Carling Festival Weekend. Even back then, the fractious relationship at the heart of the band meant that there were rumours that the band were about to split, which Noel playfully alluded to during the set.
Looking back, it was not the triumphant performance I was expecting. It was hardly Knebworth or Maine Road in 1996, yet that’s all I had seen beforehand. There’s a sense of history repeating itself now. Few remember the band’s rather stale final gigs in 2009, they simply recall the glory from those first two classic albums.
Nostalgia’s Appeal
In the last couple of days, nostalgia has been the keyword. As if the Oasis logo in its Helvetica Black Oblique font was the stamp of approval for Britain itself in the mid-Nineties. A time before you knew who billionaires were, when Tory rule came to an end, the England football team had come agonisingly close to victory, and a house cost around three times your salary. Everything seemed attainable, and well-priced. Ok, times have changed, but many still hark back to those days and reminisce. When they were younger and when a British band of working-class lads from Manchester conquered all before them.
Reports suggest that Liam Gallagher’s solo shows on the Definitely Maybe tour twisted Noel’s arm into reforming the band. While the senior Gallagher brother commanded an audience of 5,500 at Piece Hall in Halifax, Liam can still headline an arena tour and a major UK music festival. With songs that his brother wrote. Jealousy can do that to a man, as can a £20m divorce settlement.
We’ve all seen the meme from The Fast Show of Perry’s return from Manchester having seen Oasis, yet it’s hard not to get swept up in it all. That optimism, that if a warring pair of brothers can create such uplifting songs, then anything is truly possible. A new government to rebuild society. A new relationship with Europe. World peace. ANYTHING.
Nostalgia works two ways, too. Those keen to see the band likely include original fans wanting to reminisce about the past and the band at their most glorious. Yes, that includes those who have failed to update their haircuts since 1996. Then there are new fans who may not have been born when Oasis split up. They may have parents who have thrust the music to them or heard the band on TikTok (allegedly 'Roll With It’ is big with the kids on the social media platform).
That sense of looking back to a time when things were almost unarguably better came up several times during the writing of my manuscript. It was likely the genesis to the whole project. In September 2018, I saw Arctic Monkeys at Sheffield Arena with my good friend, Tom O’Connor. On the way to the gig, we stopped off in a bar to avoid paying exorbitant costs for a beer. Talk turned to the last time we had seen the band together, it was February 10th 2007 at Sheffield Leadmill. It was a secret gig, and we reminisced about what we were doing at the time and how excited we were at seeing the country’s worst-kept secret at close quarters. The band was about to go on their second album run, and we had a sneak preview.
I was surprised by how much I remembered, so when the pandemic hit eighteen months later, the manuscript became my salvation as something to do. What helped was nostalgia. I interviewed a range of people when they had little else to do due to lockdown restrictions, and my conversation made them remember days when they could leave the house and see live music. Halcyon days.
Having seen Arctic Monkeys again last summer, the crowd was largely made up of kids who may have listened to their parent’s records and OG fans. That’s a huge audience to tap into. Hopefully, the tale of how these bands formed and developed is one that many are keen to read about. Indeed, one quote notes that only two other bands have had a similar impact to Arctic Monkeys when they burst onto the scene. The Beatles and Oasis.
Tapping Into Nostalgia
Of course, the testimony captured in the quotes sends people back to those heady times in the mid-2000s. Sure, it wasn’t the apex of Britpop, yet it was still a genuinely exciting time. Digital file-sharing had arrived via Napster, a development that terrified record labels (and Metallica). Simply using the internet to download tracks and then having the ability to transfer (burn) them onto a CD to give to your mates felt revolutionary. Online social media platforms like Myspace could spread those tracks, and a band’s appeal with it, far and wide. Finally, The Strokes had made guitar music cool again, and there was a set of bands from Sheffield and Leeds ready to step up.
As my manuscript has finally garnered interest (more on that when I’m allowed to announce it), I’m starting to consider marketing plans. If the use of a single font can send Oasis fans into a frenzy, then I have to wonder what I can do to create a similar effect. Perhaps using Arctic Monkeys’ original logo as a template, though that’s a one-off logo rather than a font. Maybe replicating the technology at the time with a webpage that appears like Myspace with the same functionality. A free ‘ripped’ CD with the book of various demo tracks? Even a fanzine with a hand-drawn cover like Thee Humbug which was created by Thee SPC.
Answers on a postcard please, or send me a poke.
Looking forward to the exciting news! Also the optimism of Oasis tickets in this post vs the reality of Monday’s bonus is very saddening!