I had the 'time of my life' watching Oasis at Loch Lomond - but I won't be buying tickets for their reunion

The diminishing returns of Oasis’s later albums never dulled their potency as a live act

Where were you while we were getting high? For me, it was standing on a carpet of empty beer bottles, drenched in sweat and cheap Scotch, as the rumbling menace of Columbia’s opening chords vibrated across Balloch Castle Country Park.

It was August 3, 1996. I was 16 years old and having the time of my life.  

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There were no camera phones or selfie sticks, and to this day, only a handful of bootleg recordings capture a sprinkling of the day’s magic. What endures is the euphoria of being among 80,000 fans lucky enough to bear witness to Oasis at their pomp on the banks of Loch Lomond.  It was a show that sounded vastly superior to the Knebworth dates a week later, and although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I was not only watching a great rock ‘n’ roll band at the peak of its powers, but part of a defining cultural moment.

Oasis perform at Loch Lomond in August 1996. Picture: TSPLOasis perform at Loch Lomond in August 1996. Picture: TSPL
Oasis perform at Loch Lomond in August 1996. Picture: TSPL | SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

Only three years had passed since Oasis piled into a Transit van and schlepped up the M6 to blag their way onto a support slot at Glasgow’s King Tut's Wah Wah Hut. They were discovered that night by Creation Records’ Alan McGee, setting in motion a dizzying ascent that hoisted British guitar music out of the doldrums and provided the foundations for the last cohesive national scene in British music’s storied history.

For a working-class teenager growing up in a post-industrial west of Scotland town, the insouciant swagger of Oasis offered the perfect soundtrack. Few bands before or since have communicated the universal themes of escapism and ambition with such vigour, and to this day, their debut album, Definitely Maybe - 30 years young this Thursday - remains one of rock music’s defining statements of intent.

Then, as now, Oasis were maligned and misunderstood, with Noel Gallagher’s half-baked lyrics and magpie eye for plucking a chord sequence from the classic rock canon regularly cited as evidence of a band that is derivative and overrated. Such accusations are not unjustified, but the truth is that Oasis’s greatest talent was to pull off the rare trick of being meaningless to the point of nonsensical while carrying great emotional heft. 

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The diminishing returns of their later albums never dulled their potency as a live act, or the public’s appetite for them. So if the rumours are true, and Oasis are to reform, will I be among the masses trying to score tickets? Nah.

Now that I find myself in the foothills of middle age, it’s not that my gigging days are over. Only the other week, I went to Dublin to see AC/DC. But as far as Oasis is concerned, the connection isn’t as vital as it was. Those soaring, bawl-along anthems meant everything in my youth, but I’m more excited at the prospect of hearing unreleased Definitely Maybe outtakes than I am seeing them live again.

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For millions of others, of course, a reunion will be a thing to savour. You need only look at Liam Gallagher’s solo gigs to see how many young folk are in the audience, craving an experience they were too young for first time around. The fragmented nature of the music industry means there will never be another movement like Britpop again, but if the Gallagher brothers can hold their uneasy truce, they deserve their moment back in the sunshine. 

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