Last summer, a phenomenon spread from beyond the music world to culture at large, defining a time period into a single, four-letter word: Brat. It was “Brat Summer,” kicked off by an album from pop trendsetter Charli XCX, which came with its own color scheme, carefree attitude, and even light political endorsements. People young and, err, not-so-young could create their very own Brat avatar using an online Brat generator, make an “Apple” dance video for TikTok, or chase down Charli at iconic public moments like her Brat wall “performance” or abroad as she thrashed around for a Boiler Room set.
Interestingly, the moment wasn’t even tied to a tour, which made her Sweat run with Troye Sivan and her eventual Brat concerts feel like extensions of Brat summer even as the weather changed and the calendar flipped. And it also highlighted a greater cultural trend, where online fandoms and social media moments intersect art to form cultural touchstones that feel more monocultural than ever.
Just the year before, cinema enjoyed the Barbenheimer moment, in which two disparate films opened on the same day — connected only by proximity and quality — and saw massive numbers thanks to people’s social-driven desire to participate in a moment. And of course, there was Taylor Swift, traversing her Eras Tour first around America, and then globally, where just about every major city in the world had its weekend in the spotlight for people to participate in a one-time cultural touchstone. Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour ran concurrently and saw a similar reaction, with people dressing in their finest chrome outfits to pay tribute to a dance-pop moment like no other.
Which, of course, brings us to 2025 and the music event of this summer: Oasis. Easily the most sought-after and hoped-for reunion tours of the past decade, the long-feuding Gallagher brothers finally put their differences aside and decided to, in the words of Matty Healy, be the biggest band in the world. Beginning the run at the top of summer in their British homeland and now making their way to the US (with Asia and Latin America to come), you don’t need to go much beyond Instagram to learn that Oasis Summer is in full force. Nearly every tour stop is making news for some reason — without looking to create viral moments through pre-planned live guests — whether it is Dua Lipa passionately singing along to “Don’t Look Back In Anger” as an audience member or Liam playfully jabbing Coldplay’s fan concert cam.
With their stop in Los Angeles over the weekend for two nights at the Rose Bowl, the magnitude of the shows came into focus. Thanks to both online sales and a Hollywood pop-up shop that stocked an insane amount of new Oasis merch — including their much-sought-after Adidas collab — there was more band merch worn at this particular concert than I’d ever seen before. It came to the point that the people who most stood out were the ones that got creative with their fits. There were folks who dressed as if they were members of the band complete with Adidas tracksuits and bucket hats. There were those that dusted off rare, vintage pieces that proved their Oasis bonafides. There were even people who made custom pieces to have their own inside-joke messaging.
But it became pretty clear once the band started playing that people weren’t just at the show because it was the thing to do. Fans all over knew the words to not just the massive radio hits like “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova,” but also the fan favorites like “Acquiesce” and “Talk Tonight.” The audience skewed millennial and Gen X, but there were certainly plenty of younger people attending as well, firing up cigarettes and spilling beer with their older contemporaries, knowing the words to “Slide Away” as well as someone that was actually around for that song’s release.
And for the band’s part, the biggest concern for most hasn’t been how well their sound had aged or what the show would look like. It was simply “could the band survive” long enough to make it to the later dates in Los Angeles, Mexico City, Tokyo, and beyond. And so far, the answer has been a resounding “yes.” Between Europe and America, Noel even did an interview noting how nice it was to be around Liam again. They march out every show with their hands clasped, and Noel has not shied away from the emotion of returning to the massive audiences of their heyday. Liam is less outwardly sentimental about the whole thing, instead bringing his trademark grumpy snark to his on-stage banter, which, if we’re being honest, real fans wouldn’t want any other way.
The performance remains about community, with Liam acknowledging on Saturday that “the band isn’t an easy band to be a fan of” while thanking people for sticking with them all these years. They played their best songs over the course of two hours — loud and tight and well-rehearsed — taking the moment as seriously as possible. But they were also sure to be themselves. The stage production is as spare as can be, with little done with lighting or set design to appeal to the big-stage environment (outside a cutout of Pep Guardiola, the beloved Manchester City coach who is widely regarded to be the best in the world). But it works because people want to hear the songs so badly, that the two brother being together on stage is its own special effect — and also, because lights and pyro and other big stadium signifiers would ultimately read as inauthentic. In a sense, the performance plays like a Michelin starred dinner where flavor trumps presentation and ambiance. If the food is this good and the people are this hungry, there’s no need to dress it up to look like something it isn’t.
And that made the big conclusion, when the fireworks shot off at the end of “Champagne Supernova,” feel all the more appropriate. The aforementioned Coldplay, possibly the gold standard for concerts at this level, shoot off fireworks are nearly every song in their stadium show. And while it’s fun and absolutely their thing, it also strips some of the punctuation off of a big finish. Here, Oasis made the finale feel like a fitting conclusion, rather than just “the way you are supposed to end big concerts.”
I don’t think many would have predicted that a band reunion of English men in their 50s could take over the cultural consciousness in this way in 2025, the way the biggest pop stars in the world have in recent years. But with the attention of music fans focused on the music of my own youth, at least for the moment, I welcome Oasis Summer to last forever. Or, at the very least, long enough to get Oasis Autumn.