Oasis are officially back, with Liam and Noel Gallagher promising to bury their long standing beef for the sake of fourteen special shows across the UK and Ireland, then a later tour outside of Europe. But considering their lengthy history of infighting, cancelling shows and cutting tours short, we’ll see if that all comes to pass.
At this point, the band are as known for their feuds as they are for their music. They’ve had beef with Blur, Taylor Swift and the Spice Girls, to name but a few. Though no rift is deeper and more tempestuous than the relationship between the two brothers, who have been basically emancipated for the best part of 15 years.
The story of the brothers’ beef is long and winding. It involves a tambourine, a cricket bat and a lot of booze. It also prompted some of the great insults of our time, like when Noel said Liam was “the angriest man you'll ever meet. He's like a man with a fork in a world of soup.” Or when Liam told Radio X that Noel left Oasis because he “couldn’t handle the vibes any more.”
Here, we look back on the key milestones of their Cain and Abel-esque siblinghood, tracking exactly how Oasis fell apart.
September 1994: Noel quits for the first time after taking a tambourine to the head
While both brothers walked away from Oasis at various points in the band’s career, Noel was the first to momentarily throw in the towel in 1994, ahead of the band’s first North America tour.
“It was Liam’s birthday as we crossed the International Date Line on the way from Japan to L.A. to start our first proper American tour,” Noel told Uncut magazine. “It’s the first night of the tour at the Whisky A Go Go, and everyone but me were wasted on crystal meth,” he claimed, “someone got hit in the face with a chair, there was a big fight, the press called us a bunch of drug addicts and I got the tour float, my passport and f***ed off to San Francisco.”
Liam apparently insulted the band and threw a tambourine at Noel’s head. Luckily the band’s record label, Creation Records, was able to smooth it out and talk Noel into rejoining the band. Noel has since made light of Liam and his tambourine, telling Radio X in 2023, “Towards the end of Oasis you were always stepping into the unknown because the tambourine player was a bit of a loose cannon and it was like, ‘Well is this gig gonna finish?’”
Spring 1995: Noel allegedly hits Liam with a cricket bat
During the recording of the band’s second album, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, in Wales, Liam brought a group of people back from the pub to hang out in the studio while Noel was trying to work. Noel was angry at the disruption and forced the people to leave, prompting a fight between the brothers where Noel allegedly picked up a nearby cricket bat and hit Liam over the head. The bat was thrown in the bin, then later salvaged by writer Paulo Hewitt and sold at auction. One post from an Oasis fan forum in 2011 reveals it was originally listed on eBay for $1800. Quite the bargain.
November 1995: A leaked interview reveals the brothers squabbling
Just as Oasis were approaching major commercial success with (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, released October 1995, an interview was released that revealed over 14 minutes of the brothers arguing. The interview, which took place in April 1994 with Liam, Noel and NME journalist John Harris, exposed the depth of the chasm between the two brothers as the pair of them flung insults at each other while barely pausing for breath.
The conversation was released as a single, which led to it charting at 52 on the UK Singles Chart, the highest charting interview of all-time. Funnily enough, neither Liam or Noel really minded the argument being out in the open. But now their beef was exposed to the world. People were interested.
August 1996: Liam pulls a sicky, misses out on America tour
Liam Gallagher refused to appear on stage for Oasis’s big MTV Unplugged show at the Royal Festival Hall in London, which came straight after the band’s iconic Knebworth gigs. “As they said, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Oasis,’ we walked out and [Liam] wasn’t there,” Noel once told Far Out Magazine about the group’s MTV Unplugged taping in 1996. “He said, ‘I’m not doing it. I thought, ‘Thanks a lot.’”
The band had two weeks worth of rehearsals for the taping, of which Liam attended three. During one, he apparently pointed to his throat to indicate that he couldn’t go on singing. It couldn’t have been that bad, though, given that Liam then sat in the audience and spent the whole time heckling his brother while drinking and smoking.
Later that month Liam also pulled out of the band’s tour across America, leaving Noel to front the band. Liam eventually turned up three days in, but the tour was cancelled after two weeks.
May 2000: Liam makes a comment about Noel’s daughter
When Oasis’s drummer drummer Alan White injured his arm ahead of the band’s Barcelona show in 2000, the band called off the show and started drinking instead. This led to a big fight between Liam and Noel Gallagher, during which Liam allegedly questioned the legitimacy of Noel’s daughter, Anaïs, who he shares with his (now) ex-wife Meg Matthews. “Noel is on top of Liam in an instant, punching him, splitting his lip,” reported The Guardian. “Afterwards, Noel leaves the tour, the rest of the band dragging themselves around Europe without him.”
“I've never forgiven him because he's never apologised," Noel told Q magazine in 2005.
June 2005: Liam walks off stage during Champagne Supernova
It’s a tough life being an Oasis fan. Just when you think the band is getting on okay - the show has gone ahead, both brothers have turned up, fantastic - one of them walks off during one of their most popular songs. This happened in Italy, June 2005, at Heineken Jammin’ Festival, when Liam stormed off mid-Champagne Supernova.
It was a sign of the increasingly fractured relationship between the two, which was now hanging by a thread. In an interview with Spin magazine in October of that year, Noel said of his brother: “I’ve kind of learnt that instead of arguing stuff out with him and ending up in a fight, I work on his psychology and he’s completely freaked out by me now, he’s actually frightened to death of me.”
August 2009: Noel quits, Oasis splits!
After even more public fighting, bitchy comments to reporters and no-shows at gigs and festivals, Noel finally decided to call it a day in August 2009. This came after a big fight at Rock en Seine festival in Paris, where Liam was allegedly wielding Noel’s guitar “like an axe” backstage. “"He was quite violent," Noel claimed. "At that point there was no physical violence but there was a lot of World Wrestling Federation stuff. It was an unnecessarily violent act and he nearly took my face off."
Noel declared his decision to leave via the Oasis website and left no doubt that it was because of Liam. “It's with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer,” he said.
Ever since then, fans have been clamouring for an Oasis reunion, but the brothers have remained at each other's throats for the best part of 15 years. Who knows what happened to bring them back together now, but let’s pray it lasts.
