Was Knebworth the beginning of the end for Oasis?
In the late 1990s, no other rock band could compete with the sheer force of Oasis. With two knockout albums and a seemingly endless stream of hits from Noel Gallagher, the band had a momentum that would never be stopped, leading to them playing the most significant gigs that any rock band could ever dream of. After slogging it out on the road and in the studio, their iconic performances at Knebworth were sure to be one of the greatest moments of their career…right?
Very few people could argue that Oasis didn’t deserve to be on the stage in the middle of that field. With all of the great songs that they had written, they undoubtedly deserved to be makers of history that day. Although the shows marked a highlight for the Manchester band and the Britpop scene at large, the gigs may have been a bit too much too soon in the long run.
Throughout their career, Noel talked about wanting the band’s songs to become immortal, writing music that would stand the test of time much longer than any of their contemporaries. While he may have been correct for the first handful of albums, Knebworth marked a point where the group had reached the ceiling too soon.
Compared to most acts that have a knockout album to start, What’s the Story Morning Glory was much larger than anyone could have predicted, making songs that still see airtime on the radio to this day, like ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’. Featuring a slew of amazing B-sides, the band had a treasure trove of music to draw from, with no one realising that the well was about to run dry for a little while.
While it looked like the next few years would showcase Oasis marking their territory as the biggest act in the world, it proved to be a massive cover-up. From Noel struggling with writer’s block to the enormous amount of overdubbing getting out of control in the studio, Be Here Now marked the moment when the bubble burst for Oasis, having nowhere to go but down once fans were treated to lacklustre melodies and songs that droned on for way too long.
Even the songs that measured up during their Knebworth show didn’t seem to have the same energy when brought to the studio. Though the band did showcase ‘My Big Mouth’ for the first time at one of their dates, the massive influx of guitar feedback and God knows how many tracks on the final master made it seem like more of a chore than anything else.
When talking about their pivotal gigs after the fact, even Bonehead agreed that the band should have bowed out for a while after playing those monumental shows. As he recalled in the documentary Supersonic, “What we should have said at the end of the gig was ‘We were Oasis! Good night!’”.
Oasis probably should have gone the route as Wham!, another juggernaut of British music headed by two central figures. Coming towards the end of their run and with George Michael’s solo career looming on the horizon, the pop duo’s final shows at Wembley Stadium put a great exclamation point on their career before Michael could set out on his own.
While Oasis breaking up at that time would have made fans miss out on a handful of stellar tracks in the later half of their career, it would have been more poetic for them to bow out gracefully. Since their classic material had already been put out to the public, calling it a day would have helped preserve the group’s legacy rather than letting all those rock god connotations take an uglier course.
It might be easy for critics to say that the Gallaghers’ status had gone to their head, but that’s looking at the situation at the surface level. There would never be a time when either of the Gallaghers wasn’t high off their own hubris, but the massive influx of intention made them speedrun through their classic material before stopping with the same force as a freight train hitting a brick wall.
From what we know about the band’s trajectory now, the Knebworth gigs tend to have a different connotation with a handful of fans. As fans watch footage of Noel and Liam playing their hearts out that night, there’s almost a bittersweet feeling, as if fans are seeing the last time the group ever measured up to their supposed god-like status.
