For 15 years, Dylan Shepherd’s band was as close as you could get to seeing Oasis onstage.
Shepherd fronts Supersonic, an Oasis tribute act that’s nailed every detail of their Manchester heroes’ live sets, from Liam Gallagher’s anorak jacket-bedecked swagger to the precise jangle of his brother Noel‘s guitar. For fans worried that the famously acrimonious Gallagher brothers would never reunite after their chaotic 2009 split, Supersonic was a solid alternative.
Never has a band been happier to be upstaged.
“Like everyone else, we were shocked and elated when Oasis announced they were getting back together,” Shepherd said. “We came up with the concept of going and doing a bunch of shows in cities just before them to get people even more fired up, if that’s even possible.”
On Friday, just before Oasis plays the Rose Bowl, Supersonic will headline the Whisky a Go Go, the site of Oasis’ infamous drug-fueled meltdown onstage in 1994. Supersonic will likely behave better than the Gallaghers, but for Angeleno Anglophiles, this week’s revelry is on par with Taylor Swift’s Eras tour or a BTS reunion coming to town.
For one weekend, L.A. will more or less become Manchester with palm trees.
“We went to their first Manchester show in July and it was unbelievable, the atmosphere was just buzzing,” Shepherd said. “Out of every shop window, every bar, you could hear Oasis, and they sounded better than they ever have.”
In a time when giant pop tours are the barometer of health for the live music industry, Oasis’ reunion feels both old-fashioned and refreshing — a hard-partying, live-wire rock band is suddenly the hottest ticket in town. The band’s shows in the UK transformed its city centers with a fervor closer to national heritage than mere rock band fandom.
Now, for the first time since 2008, it’s L.A.’s turn.
Anyone who has seen the documentary “Depeche Mode: 101” or attended a Morrissey show with a Chicano-heavy crowd knows that L.A. turns out for its idols across the pond. Some superfans here couldn’t wait for the band to make it over.
“I’ve been a fan since the ‘90s, but I never got to see them back in the day and I’ve just been waiting for them to resolve things,” said Rose Ghavami, an L.A. promoter and DJ who flew to the U.K. for two Oasis shows. That wasn’t nearly enough, though.
“I’m crazy. I’m going to the Rose Bowl on Saturday and then to see them in Mexico City the following weekend. Centering travels around these concerts has been super-emotional. I definitely cried alongside with everyone, singing every word,” Ghavami said.
Between those shows, she’s hosting an Oasis-themed pre-party at Cha Cha Lounge in Silver Lake on Friday. Among her contingent of Britpop fans here, she sees parallels to another group’s historic sweep of American stadiums.
“I wasn’t around for Beatlemania, but this feels similar to that,” Ghavami said. “It’s usually cringe to wear a band’s shirt to their concert, but this gets a pass because people were head to toe in gear from their bucket hats to their socks. I see people walking down the street here with Oasis gear, and you stop each other to ask ‘Are you going to the show?’”
Indeed, the lines at the Oasis pop-up merch mart in Hollywood have been formidable, as fans rushed to commemorate the reunion they feared might never come. The tour’s rapturous reviews — and a notable lack of drama between the Gallaghers — cemented this as the must-see rock event of the year.
Even for seasoned Oasis tour vets, the outpouring of goodwill and camaraderie between the band and fans has been invigorating.
Kevin Cummins is a British photographer who captured the group in its earliest days, just before releasing its debut LP “Definitely Maybe.” He’s exhibiting shots from his book of that era, “Oasis: The Masterplan,” at Musichead Gallery in Hollywood starting this week. Even he’s taken aback by how frictionless and joyful this reunion has been.
“I watch football with Noel in England, and we’d talked about a reunion on and off over years. He’d always say no, it’ll never happen, it won’t work,” Cummins said. “So I was as surprised as anybody about the scale of these gigs and the reception they’re getting. When I speak to Noel after the gigs, he says each is better than last one. I don’t think even they quite believe how huge this has become.”
Cummins has photographed the band for three decades, and always admired how Oasis fans identified with their working-class insouciance and biting humor. In a political climate where every cultural figure can become instantly polarizing, Oasis’ reunion was the closest thing the U.K. got to a national consensus.
In an L.A. ravaged by fires, ICE and a doom-stricken mood in its hallmark entertainment industries, Oasis’ return is a rare spectacle to look forward to as well.
“In England, the gigs were a time of renewal, if that’s not too corny,” Cummins said. “This year has been pretty miserable year politically, so this tour has come along and been great distraction. Oasis has always been a band people were fiercely proud of, and this is like going to football game where 80,000 people are rooting for same team.”
All week, L.A. bars and nightclubs have packed their calendars with Oasis-themed parties. Regulars at Club Underground, a decades-long British indie night now at Grand Star Jazz Club in Chinatown, would naturally get in on the occasion.
“Every week, ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ is our closing song,” said Lawrence Gjurgevich, who throws Club Underground as DJ Larry G (naturally, they’re throwing a pre-party Friday night). Affection for Britpop in L.A. “Goes back to the original KROQ, which played bands like New Order, the Smiths, the Cure,” he said. “There’s always been a lineage here that continues with bands like Arctic Monkeys and Fontaines D.C.”
Gjurgevich lost his home in the Eaton fire, and while he’s buried in the rebuilding process, these Oasis shows are both a respite and a reminder of why he made a life in L.A.’s music scene. “The shows are in our backyard, which is amazing,” he said. “We’re rebuilding and it’s heavy, but this has been something to look forward to, a place to make new friends.”
Even young newcomers, who missed Oasis in its boozy ‘90s heyday and 2000s collapse, are compelled by this tour, said Holiday Kirk, an L.A. promoter, writer and memelord (who is partially responsible for the nu-metal revival among Gen Z).
“If you’re under 25, you don’t remember how omnipresent Oasis was. You couldn’t get away from them, they could park singles at number one by sheer will,” Kirk, who in his early thirties, said.
Kirk is pivoting to Britpop for an Oasis-heavy pre-party at Gold Diggers on Friday. There’s certainly a nostalgia factor for older fans, but also a curiosity from younger ones about a band that slung insults, fists and cocaine in equal measure while writing some of its era’s most affecting songs.
Gen Z fans are “fascinated by the idea of being an uncompromising rock band and conquering the world. That’s so far out of anyone’s conception of what’s possible today,” Kirk said. “Can you imagine Sabrina Carpenter, in an interview, saying she hated Taylor Swift? It’s so fun to think that you can do that and it wouldn’t ruin your career. I’ve seen so many Liam Gallagher fancams on TikTok where the comments are like ‘OMG, so babygirl’” — a Gen Z term of endearment for older men — “because no other frontman has had that swagger since.”
Even for fans left out of the Rose Bowl shows, the Alamo Drafthouse cinema in downtown L.A. screened the 2016 Oasis documentary “Oasis: Supersonic” this week to offer a taste of the band at its incendiary peak.
“There’s such an appeal for young audiences to see these cultural documents of a world before the celebrity became so image-conscious and considerate of stakeholders,” said Jake Isgar, the head of specialty programming for Alamo Drafthouse. “The Gallagher brothers can’t help but be themselves, and that’s why people are so drawn to them.”
While Pasadena will be the center of the rock and roll universe this weekend, Oasis posted a live map of pre-parties and band-historic sites in Los Angeles where the devoted can take a pilgrimage. (Yep, the Whisky is on there.) It’s been a brutal year for so many in L.A., and the chance to finally throw back as much beer as the Rose Bowl will serve you and scream along to “Acquiesce” and “Morning Glory” is proof anyone — even the Gallagher brothers — can find a way to reconcile and recover.
“I’ve seen people bringing their children to these shows, multiple generations having communal experiences. I can’t think of another band that could have this impact,” Ghavami said. “After ICE raids, fires and political tension, things are awful. We need to bring joy back to people. Something simple like one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time. I’m excited to be alive for it.”
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