I’m going to make a fairly outrageous statement. Oasis splitting up was probably the best thing that could have happened to music.

There. I’ve said it.

Before the Oasis faithful start sharpening their pitchforks, hear me out.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that the music of Oasis was somehow inferior to what followed. Quite the opposite. What I’m suggesting is that if Noel and Liam Gallagher had managed to tolerate each other indefinitely, we might never have been showered with the extraordinary collection of music they’ve created since going their separate ways.

Think about it. One of the greatest bands of the 1990s splits up and, instead of losing one great band, we effectively end up with two.

Not a bad result, really.

London Calling

To appreciate just how enormous Oasis had become, you really needed to be in Britain in the mid-1990s.

As luck would have it, I was.

I landed in London on Monday, 16 October 1995. Exactly two weeks earlier, on Monday, 2 October, Oasis had released their second album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?

And the place had gone absolutely bloody bonkers.

The band’s rise to fame was almost Beatlesque. Britain was in the grip of Britpop, and two brothers from Manchester had somehow managed to position themselves at the centre of the musical universe.

I can distinctly remember radio stations actively playing nothing but Morning Glory around the clock. It felt like you couldn’t turn on a radio, walk into a pub or pick up a newspaper without encountering Oasis.

And what an album it was.

Wonderwall. Don’t Look Back in Anger. Champagne Supernova. Some Might Say. Morning Glory.

Song after song after song.

There was something quite extraordinary about being in London at that precise moment in musical history. You knew something enormous was happening, even if you couldn’t quite appreciate just how enduring the music would become.

The Boys Are Coming to Town. Everybody Take Cover.

Remarkably, Oasis didn’t make their first Australian tour until February 1998, almost two and a half years after Morning Glory was released.

And they certainly knew how to make an entrance.

The band arrived in Perth on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong, accompanied by reports of fisticuffs between band members during the flight.

At the time, I was working with the Corporate Affairs at Ansett Australia, which had the responsibility of transporting Oasis around the country in a dedicated Fokker F28 jet.

I can distinctly remember some rather nervous faces in our public relations team.

After all, putting one of the world’s most notoriously combustible rock bands together in a relatively small aircraft for a series of domestic flights wasn’t necessarily everyone’s idea of a relaxing assignment.

I suspect somebody had a fairly stern word with the boys when they arrived because, as far as I can recall, there wasn’t any significant trouble during their travels in Australia.

Perhaps the Gallaghers were on their best behaviour.

There’s a sentence you don’t get to write very often.

Ten Million Pounds and a Wall of Noise

I went along to see Oasis at Melbourne’s Tennis Centre on Sunday, 1 March 1998.

My overwhelming recollection?

A wall of noise.

An absolutely enormous, relentless wall of sound that seemed to sum up Oasis as a live band at that point in their career.

It was loud. It was brash. It was unmistakably Oasis.

But I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever attended.

Interestingly, some years later I heard an interview with Noel Gallagher in which he effectively admitted the Australian tour hadn’t been one of their finest moments.

And his explanation was priceless.

Apparently, during the tour, Noel had discovered that the royalties from Morning Glory had helped put something like ten million pounds into his bank account.

Imagine being a young bloke from Manchester, barely a few years removed from relative obscurity, and suddenly discovering you’ve got that sort of money sitting in your bank account.

Apparently, concentrating on putting on a decent show for a few thousand Aussies wasn’t necessarily at the top of the priority list.

Fair enough, I suppose.

I’d probably have been a little distracted myself.

When One Band Became Two

Oasis continued making music for another decade, gradually evolving beyond the guitar-driven Manchester sound that had defined their early years.

By the time their seventh and final studio album, Dig Out Your Soul, appeared in October 2008, there was a noticeably different musical character emerging. The influences were broader, the arrangements more adventurous and the songwriting more varied.

Then, in August 2009, it all came crashing down.

The Gallagher brothers finally reached the point where sharing a stage, a dressing room or possibly even the same postcode had become intolerable.

Oasis was finished.

Or so we thought.

Because what followed was, to my ears, one of the great creative dividends in modern rock music.

Noel Gallagher formed Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, while Liam eventually established himself as a formidable solo artist, following his time with Beady Eye.

And suddenly we had two very different musical personalities, each free to explore ideas that might never have found their way onto an Oasis album.

The result has been magnificent.

Noel Gallagher Takes Flight

Have you properly introduced yourself to Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds?

If not, you’re missing something special.

Start with Everybody’s on the Run, the opening track from their self-titled 2011 debut album.

Crikey!

The orchestral strings are absolutely breathtaking. Then there are those almost monastic backing vocals, creating an atmosphere that sounds as though it belongs on the soundtrack of some sweeping romantic epic.

Something like Gone with the Wind, only with Noel Gallagher providing the emotional devastation.

The song builds and builds, layer upon layer, until it becomes something far removed from the familiar Oasis formula.

It’s grand. It’s cinematic. It’s timeless.

And it’s the sort of musical beauty that reminds you just how gifted Noel Gallagher is as a songwriter.

Then there’s Holy Mountain.

Have you ever tried listening to that song without moving your feet?

Impossible.

It’s an infectious, stomping, gloriously ridiculous piece of rock ‘n’ roll that seems to exist for no other reason than to make people happy.

And sometimes that’s exactly what music should do.

Full stop.

Then we get to Rattling Rose.

Now we’re talking.

What a cool, wonderfully laid-back groove.

And wait until you get to that irresistible little vocal refrain.

Ba-da-ba-da, ba, ba, ba-da-ba-da.

You know the bit.

There are moments when Noel Gallagher sounds like he’s been taking songwriting lessons from Burt Bacharach and the results are simply stunning.

Who would have imagined that sort of musical adventure coming from the bloke responsible for Cigarettes & Alcohol?

And we haven’t even started on the haunting beauty of The Dying of the Light or If I Had a Gun…

Two quite magnificent songs that demonstrate another side of Noel’s songwriting.

There’s a maturity and emotional depth in this music which goes well beyond the swagger of early Oasis.

Don’t misunderstand me. I still love that swagger.

But I love this stuff too.

Perhaps even more.

And You Know How Much I Love the Stats

Regular readers will know I have a slightly unhealthy fascination with my music-listening statistics.

So naturally, I couldn’t resist checking my Noel Gallagher numbers.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve listened to 52 different songs by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

And I’ve played those songs a collective 1,392 times.

That’s four days, five hours and fifty minutes of pure Noel Gallagher.

Not bad, eh?

And the wonderful thing is that I still keep discovering little musical details that I hadn’t previously noticed.

That’s the hallmark of great music. It keeps giving.

Sorry Liam. Your Turn.

I’ve been crapping on about your brother for so long that it’s only fair I give you some attention.

Liam Gallagher’s solo career has been another wonderful consequence of the Oasis break-up.

His 2019 album Why Me? Why Not. is a terrific collection of songs, showcasing that unmistakable voice while demonstrating that Liam was perfectly capable of building a musical identity outside the band that made him famous.

But there’s one song on that album that means more to me than almost anything else either Gallagher brother has recorded.

Now That I’ve Found You.

And this is where the story becomes a little personal.

I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Liam Gallagher for creating that beautiful song.

Because it was the first piece of music played when la mia bellissima moglie, Ginevra, and I signed our wedding vows and presented ourselves to our families for the very first time as husband and wife.

A magical song for a magical moment.

Music has an extraordinary ability to attach itself to the most important events in our lives. Years later, a familiar melody can take you straight back to a particular place, a particular person or a particular feeling.

For me, Now That I’ve Found You will always take me back to that moment.

And I can’t think of a greater compliment to pay a songwriter.

So, Was Breaking Up Really Such a Bad Thing?

Of course, Oasis eventually found their way back together, and I can completely understand why millions of fans wanted to see the Gallagher brothers sharing a stage again.

But here’s my point.

If they’d never split up in 2009, would we have experienced the same extraordinary body of music from Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds?

Would Liam have discovered his own voice as a solo artist and given us albums like Why Me? Why Not.?

Would either brother have been willing, or even able, to venture so far beyond the musical boundaries of Oasis?

Maybe. Maybe not.

And while I’ll always have enormous affection for the music that first captivated me in London back in October 1995, I’m equally grateful for everything that followed.

Because sometimes the end of something wonderful creates the opportunity for something equally wonderful to begin.

In this case, twice over.

And for that, gentlemen, thank you.

Ramble on.