A private pilgrimage spanning 29 years – from Knebworth’s ecstatic chaos to the rain-soaked reunion at Heaton Park 2025, the place a lifelong obsession lastly comes full circle.
What occurs while you lastly catch the excitement you’ve been chasing for nearly 30 years. That is my story….
Sunday, August sixteenth 1996, aged 19: sprinting into the entrance pit at Knebworth, coronary heart pounding, a free-spirited teenager chasing the sound of my era. Sunday twentieth July 2025: front-pit certain once more; the ultimate homecoming night time of ‘Stay 25’ at Manchester’s Heaton Park, aged 47 with my 21-year-old son. For 3 many years, I’ve chased that first excessive. Unbeknownst to me on the time, I’d peaked in ‘96. Oasis at Knebworth was the gig of my life, no occasion got here shut, and oh did I attempt. As life swept me on a riptide to duty, it turned a cherished time-capsule in my thoughts of a less complicated, carefree period…
Younger and invincible, a pilgrimage from the North West. Fiesta Mark 2 home windows wound down, mixtapes on the prepared, we carried solely a head stuffed with Madchester desires and our golden tickets. One of many fortunate 10%, obtained by means of willpower, persistence and *petty crime – I’d picked open our flatshare payphone with a bobby pin, slotted the identical 50p time and again, shaking with adrenaline as Ticketline linked with a click on, a style of buzzes to return. *I put the 50p again.
The day of the gig, we had no grasp plan, the heady, halcyon instances of ‘wing it and see’. The second gates slid open, like rabbits from a entice, we fled as quick as our Kickers and Rockports may carry us. Not only for a very good view. For the pit. The pulsating heartbeat of the beast. To a backdrop of Forged, baking sunshine intensifying lingering side-effects of the earlier night time’s get together, I cooled off in a vest purchased with the £20 word rapidly stuffed in my bra for beer and merch. Chaos and giddiness orbited and expanded in tandem with the aroma of lukewarm lager and squidgy black. Anticipation was constructing, an amazing feeling that the universe was revolving round this one subject in Stevenage. Or possibly that was simply the smoke.
When the lads swaggered onstage, it went wild. Kings of the citadel. Their songs didn’t simply soundtrack our lives; they have been our lives. They have been us, and we have been them. We have been now on the epicentre of a cultural tsunami. I appeared backwards from the pit into an ocean of friends, communal in our elation. The primal scream of 125,000 souls in unison, a metronome of heartbeats. The psychedelic stage spirals sucked us in, swirled us round and spat us out once more. Roman candles boomed a crescendo, a closing curtain of smoke lowered over hugging our bodies, I used to be swept alongside a tidal wave of competition flotsam, eardrums disfunct, pondering: nothing will ever contact this. Seems I used to be proper. And for practically three many years, I’ve been chasing that Holy Grail first-hit excessive. Gig after gig.
By means of life’s upheavals, their music noticed me by means of. I’d clung to the memorabilia: front-pit band, vest, programme, ticket, fuzzy Supasnaps of Noel, 5 rows deep from the barrier. Till in the future, they have been gone. Cleared out of an attic throughout a home transfer. Because the years fell by just like the rain, I missed these little treasures, meaningless to most, elements of my historical past that have been bagged up and thrown away. I longed not only for the music however for one thing tangible once more. Put up-split, I watched the brothers individually. All of the beady-eyed, flying birds, Liam stadium-fillers, Undoubtedly Possibly’s, Liam turning wheels to Mars through Liverpool, dripping rainbows with Squire. Sang my coronary heart out at each Britpop and indie band’s reunion tour – 20, 25, and thirtieth anniversary excursions. All the things electrical in its personal approach. Arenas, festivals, intimate acoustic and orchestrals. All the time hoping for that star-aligning second the place I’d really feel it once more. All the time a chemical aspect lacking. Nice nights, sure. However by no means that.. Every time, I walked away pondering, possibly subsequent time.
I waited. By no means gave up hope. I used to be ridiculed, advised to let it go. One buddy must eat a hat.. As a result of I knew in my bones that in the future it might occur. In April ‘24, a Jo Whiley podcast appeared referred to as The Rise And Fall Of Oasis. At that second, I knew. Then lastly in August got here the announcement: Oasis, reunited. twenty fourth August ‘24 was a reluctant “final one for the highway” all-dayer at SWG3 in Glasgow, a buddy’s fiftieth. Hadn’t raved for 25 years, threw shapes the likes of which hadn’t been witnessed in many years. Three days into the restoration, reunion information emerged, mirage-like in a desert, and ticket pre-sale was in three days. I barely dared consider the reality, thought I’d died on that dancefloor. If I’m already useless, how would I do know?
This time, no payphone thuggery. As an unique member of Oasisnet, I acquired a hallowed pre-sale code. Coronary heart palpitating, palms trembling as soon as once more, this time in a digital ready room with 1000’s of others, I went all-in: VIP, exhibition entry, restricted version merch bundle, the works. This time, for my Gen Z son, born in 2004, raised on their music, an enormous a part of the soundtrack to his life from in utero. Nurtured all through a time missing in definitive youth tradition, he latched on to the bands vitality, my tales, their rambunctiousness, humour and perspective. He shared this and different cultural inheritances together with his buddies; they absorbed the Gallagher back-catalogue in its entirety. I made a lifelong promise to my son that after they reformed, I might take him to witness them, dwell, first-hand.
So on Sunday, twentieth July 25, we strolled by means of the gates of Heaton Park facet by facet. No frantic working this time. I had a entrance pit assure. I wistfully considered the long-lost gadgets of memorabilia on the pre-show fan exhibition, took photographs of the Knebworth wristband and ticket, that are an in depth second. Later, the stage loomed giant, the vitality was charged, just like the Mancunian cloudburst that was about to interrupt over our heads. Throughout Forged, my son queued within the pouring rain, soaked to the bone for a t-shirt to shock me in gratitude. Chaos and giddiness orbited and expanded in tandem with the aroma of lukewarm lager and one thing inexperienced. Anticipation constructing, an amazing feeling that the universe was revolving round this one subject in Manchester. Undoubtedly wasn’t the smoke.
After which they walked out. Liam. Noel. It went wild. Kings of the town. Collectively once more. Bonehead, Gem, Andy. A wall of guitars, the roar of soundwaves acquainted to hundreds of thousands, bringing it on down in a 2020s punk-desert, giving us life. I appeared behind me- an inter-generational ocean, communal in our elation. The primal scream of 80,000 souls in unison, a metronome of heartbeats. The psychedelic LED Jumbotrons sucked us in, swigged us round and spat us out once more.
I’d carried a flame for nearly 30 years and ended up full circle, proper again within the entrance pit. For a second, it felt like time folded in on itself. I used to be 19 once more and 47 on the identical time, standing on the sting of two selves, an epic emotional collision of previous and current. I imagined there’d be tears from the off, however I used to be up within the sky, elated. Leaping, cheering, singing.Till Wonderwall. A music I’d averted for many years, too overplayed, too overhyped, parodied. All of the sudden that, of all songs, broke me. Standing nonetheless within the rain, a surreal picture of each brothers collectively as display giants, 30 years of eager for a second collapsing right into a single level of sunshine. Crying into an previous band flag, someway, that music meant every part once more. And my son, ecstatic, leaping, yelling each lyric, shiny eyes on cartoon stalks, till Champagne Supernova. The hovering, sustained finale. He broke then. Tears streamed, hugging a stranger, crying alongside him. And in that second, I knew he felt what I’d felt in 1996.
Three days later, I wrote this, and we’ve nonetheless barely spoken concerning the gig, simply communicated our ideas in silence. Possibly as a result of there aren’t any phrases large enough. It was an out of physique, virtually transcendental expertise. A dream you wait so lengthy for, that when it lastly occurs, it looks like stepping outdoors actuality. And now? Life arc, full. That stressed itch that drove me to gig after gig for many years is scratched. All feels proper with the world, nonetheless short-term. These gigs turned greater than any of us ever anticipated. Folks united, reunited, spreading the love, assembly previous buddies and making new ones. Nostalgia turned current day pleasure. Dad and mom shared the expertise of a lifetime with their youngsters. Lucid recollections tagged onto kaleidoscopic ones.
For me, the summit I’ve been climbing towards for 30 years has been reached. Retired from an everlasting quest. There’s no larger excessive – and I don’t want one. For my son, his journey has simply begun, and so the everlasting loop continues. I went to Knebworth as a youngster with contemporary hopes and desires in a condensed cultural period that can by no means be recreated. I went to Heaton Park virtually 30 years later, bone-weary, with an grownup son, in a diffuse cultural wasteland carrying the tapestry of half a century’s life story.
When one thing so long-awaited lastly occurs, there’s a way of completion, like I’ve learn the final web page of a e book I’d been carrying for years. I do hope there’s an epilogue, but when not, I can die completely satisfied. The chase is over. And none of us are getting any youthful, however our legacy will dwell eternally.
~
Phrases by Joanna Robinson
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