Danny Boyle’s favourite Oasis song: “One of the great five guitar riffs of all time”
As Oasis start tuning up their guitars, in anticipation of their mammoth comeback, the talk of what might make their setlist has run rife. They are, of course, the big hitters that we all know will make the starting line-up. But during return shows, this big, the setlist is sprawling, and I can’t imagine Liam Gallagher will be easily pulled off stage after a mere 90 minutes. So there have to be some added extras, right?
If the question of what they should play was thrown to the floor, frantic Oasis fans would fight each other for the scraps, desperately hoping their obscure sleeper hit was given time to be played in the flesh. But the truth is, a few of them are simply out of Liam’s more mature range.
Take ‘Roll It Over’, for example, the epic ballad from 2000 that, to my ear, is Liam’s finest individual performance. It’s powerful, brutal, and, in shades, vulnerable, but in 2025, it was completely unattainable from a performance point of view. Plus, the album responsible for that track, Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants, was released on the band’s downslope during the turn of the millennium, a time when the Britpop sunlight had given way to shade.
Those two factors combined are perhaps why the band’s setlist is primarily made up of tracks from the mid-1990s pomp. This was a time when their debut album stabbed a lightning rod through the industry and when their follow-up record altered the course of British music forever. Those first two records combined soundtracked a generation of liberated, experimental, and engaging British art.
Alongside them in the creative trenches was Danny Boyle, who was similarly painting a brave Britpop world but on the big screen. His seminal film Trainspotting came out just one year after Oasis’s sophomore record, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? Together, they created the boundaries of a world caught in a chapter of hedonistic and liberated bliss.
A large part of Trainspotting’s position within the cultural zeitgeist was its soundtrack. The likes of Underworld, Primal Scream and Blur are all featured in the film in a bid to cement the optimistic Britpop backdrop to the otherwise bleak story. Oasis seemed like an obvious addition to that alumni, and their omission wasn’t because of Boyle’s dislike of the band. In fact, Noel Gallagher famously turned down the chance because he thought the film was genuinely about a group of trainspotters.
Regardless, Boyle was and remains a big fan of the band and, like music fans all over, has been rubbing his hands together at the thought of their upcoming reunion and a chance to transport 30 years back to more celebratory times. But there is one song in particular that he hopes takes him there.
He told NME, “All I hope is that they play ‘Hindu Times’ because that’s the greatest, for me, that’s one of the great five guitar riffs of all time.”
It’s unlikely that Boyle’s wish will be granted; as good as a riff it may be, ‘Hindu Times’ certainly slots into the deep-cut category. But maybe a legend of 1990s culture has just lit the beacon for the band to include some of their more underrated hits this tour.
