Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger is a music documentary covering the band’s live tour last year. Fans were ecstatic when Liam and Noel Gallagher finally called time on their 15-year feud, but speaking for those who have always enjoyed their insults – Noel on Liam: ‘He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup’ – it felt like the end of an era. Would this new-found brotherliness last? I had hoped not. Remember when Liam would post photos of Noel with the single-word caption: ‘POTATO!’? Those were the days.
This is a mammoth, deafeningly loud (my teeth are still vibrating) project, mixing concert footage with rehearsal footage, archival lookbacks, fans talking about what the band meant to them, and a single (unenlightening) joint interview where the Gallaghers are disappointingly nice to each other. It’s not deeply insightful, yet it is highly watchable and you don’t need to be a fervent fan to enjoy it for what it is. I can barely tell the brothers apart – luckily Noel now has a bit of a beard, which helps – but I still enjoyed it for what it is.
But what is it exactly? It is ‘created and written’ by Steven Knight of Peaky Blinders fame. Created how? Written how? Did he shape the narrative – which is one of forgiveness and redemption, and is sometimes too on the nose? Do we really need to cut to a vicar giving a sermon on those themes? There is a sense that, even though the brothers have called a truce, they can’t reflect, so Knight has to do it for them, which makes you think: how sincere is any of this?
The film opens with a montage of their rise in the 1990s and that 2009 backstage fight in Paris after which they swore never to speak to each other again. Regrettably, we never understand who first mooted this reunion, what form it took or to what extent it might have been a business decision. (At one concert Liam calls out to those in the cheap seats and then corrects himself by remembering: ‘Actually, there are no cheap seats.’) Instead, we join them at their first rehearsal where Liam arrives grumpily late and leaves grumpily early. ‘This is a man who truly does not give a fuck,’ says Noel at one point, which was encouraging, except he says it admiringly. ‘It takes a lot of caring to not give a fuck,’ Liam counters gnomically. You can start to see Knight’s problem.
The best parts of the film are the monumental concerts in the UK, America, Europe, Asia. Fans weep as if it were a religious experience. The strength of the songs remains and the Gallaghers’ charisma is phenomenal. They put nothing between themselves and the audience. There is no throwing themselves about. There are no dancers, backing singers or, from the look of it, stylists. It is poignant at times and the most touching moments occur when they seem genuinely moved by how many of their fans are under 30 and how much they mean to people. I wish there had been more concert footage and less of the padding (e.g. that vicar and the extended vox pops with fans).
The cynical part of you will wonder if it was all ultimately a business decision. You see almost no spontaneous interactions between the brothers, beyond them holding hands when they step out on stage. Do they share a tour bus? Might they, in a foreign city, take dinner together? No idea. While you can enjoy this for what it is, don’t expect to learn anything about them, the band or their relationship, which Liam describes thus: ‘He’s full of shit and I know it. I’m full of shit and he knows it.’ A fair summary, and not bad for a man with a fork in a world of soup.
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