Noel Gallagher spent the first forty minutes of Oasis’s big reunion concert not even knowing where he was, eager to get back to the backstage. We’re talking about a man who has thrived since his first single, who has sold millions since his debut album, who played to 250,000 people before turning thirty, and who has never stopped singing the band’s hits solo for thousands of fans.
But none of those cues prepared him for what Oasis’s reunion would mean to so many people. Tickets for their first shows in 15 years flew out the door, even though they were set up as a residency in large stadiums, and many fans were left out despite protests over dynamic pricing. The new documentary Don’t Look Back In Anger is built around three pillars. The first is a series of stories from fans around the world whom we see shouting with ecstasy, crying buckets, singing on their knees to the band that used to be their favorite. One recalls how Oasis pulled them out of depression. Another named their dog Bonehead after the most charismatic guitarist they ever had.
Secondly, it portrays the rehearsals of that tour and includes an exclusive interview with Noel and Liam, who, as we all know, had stopped speaking to each other to the point that their children didn’t even know one another. The directors, Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, who had previously worked on documentaries about Blur and LCD Soundsystem, placed ten fixed cameras in the rehearsal space to naturally capture how those first meetings between the band unfolded. Liam, who plays nothing more than a tambourine-hat, arrives last, logically, and his first entrance and – above all – one of his exits do not disappoint. “Hooligans with troubling problems socializing and expressing emotions,” could be the subtitle for this movie.
The last point, and the one that takes up the most screen time, is the band’s performances in enormous stadiums across the world, beginning with the already mythical first show in Cardiff. Archival footage from Oasis’s youth is also interwoven: we hear the songs sounding almost identical and they look surprisingly good despite the excesses. Most of the documentary is devoted to showing you how well classics like “Hello,” “Champagne Supernova,” and “Stand By Me” have aged, aside from a couple of others that everyone could name. You’ll enjoy the documentary, above all, if you want to savor these performances, well-shot, on the big screen, at full volume… they look pretty handsome.
The interview section is the great disappointment of Don’t Look Back In Anger. The screenwriter and creator of the project, Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), is unable to penetrate the Gallagher brothers’ lives in any meaningful way. Nor is there mention of the possibility that Oasis reunited just for money (and it’s noted that Noel Gallagher came out poorly from his divorce), nor is there any exploration of what exactly the famous argument that led to their 2009 split consisted of. Bonehead’s cancer doesn’t exist. When the film recounts how Don’t Look Back In Anger became an anthem after the Manchester attack, outside Ariana Grande’s show, nobody seems to remember that Liam blasted Noel for not joining the charity concerts “to sing it to the kids” who were going through so much. “Don’t Look Back In Anger,” they might reply indeed. But anyone looking to understand Oasis a little better should rather watch the documentary Oasis: Supersonic.
That film, made ten years ago, was also much more fun in its editing and infinitely more imaginative in its form. Here, the tricks are limited to inserting classical music pieces (Schubert, Tchaikovsky) at key moments of the concerts to add more epic grandeur. And it works. This new film does summon a few smiles—and some tears—as in the moment when the security chief issues instructions with Oasis quotes or the mention of the Rolling Stones, but not the full laughter it could have deserved. Oasis was savage humor in the spirit of Derry Girls—and by the way they still insist they’re Irish—while this film presents them as far more restrained. More mature, yes. Oasis, now the perfect act for adult-oriented radio.
