As anticipation builds for Oasis’s 2025 reunion shows at Wembley Stadium, fans may be hoping the band’s return to the iconic venue doesn’t echo one of their most notorious performances — a chaotic 2000 gig both Noel and Liam Gallagher have publicly regretted.
The Manchester rock icons are set to headline seven nights at Wembley as part of their reunion tour across the UK and Ireland, kicking off on Friday.
It will mark the first time the group has played the national stadium since July 2009, just weeks before their acrimonious split.
But it’s their earlier stint at the venue, during the Standing on the Shoulder of Giants tour, that still looms large.
Their second night at Wembley in July 2000 was filmed for a live album and television broadcast — but quickly descended into disarray.
Frontman Liam Gallagher, visibly drunk, delivered a shambolic performance, slurring lyrics, going off-script and launching into expletive-filled rants between songs.
“[That was] the low point in Oasis,” Noel Gallagher told Radio X in 2017. “It was a horrible two-and-a-half hours on stage. Liam can hang his head in shame. It was dreadful.”
The show featured botched renditions of fan favourites like Supersonic, Roll With It and Cigarettes and Alcohol.
At one point, Liam asked for a woman to expose herself on the venue’s big screens and referenced his personal life, including his split from actress Patsy Kensit, in slurred asides.
Despite plans for a polished live album, the band’s Familiar to Millions release ended up immortalising the chaotic night.
Edited vocals and studio overdubs were used to salvage the recordings, but the original footage remains widely available online.
In more recent years, Liam has admitted it was the last time he drank heavily before going on stage, recognising the performance’s fallout.
“I’ve not drank booze on stage since that famous Wembley gig. Remember that one where it all went a bit...” he shared on Radio X.
“Apparently people like that kind of thing but now I steer clear of all of that, do you know what I mean? It’s just water man, stuff like that.”
Their final Wembley appearance in 2009, just before their infamous backstage bust-up in Paris, was more musically successful, though it ultimately marked the end of an era.
Oasis will return to the capital to play their first gig there in more than 16 years on Friday.
The rock band announced their highly anticipated reunion tour in August last year, after Noel quit in 2009 after a backstage brawl at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris.
They will now return to perform at Wembley Stadium following a run of homecoming gigs in Manchester’s Heaton Park for the first time since July 12, 2009, when they performed during their Dig Out Your Soul tour.
Oasis are scheduled to play Wembley on July 25 and 26, followed by further dates on July 30, August 2 and 3, September 27 and 28.
