“I’m not doing it”: The Oasis gig Noel Gallagher said felt like dying onstage
For a long while, it seemed like an Oasis reunion would never be on the table. With constant heat, disagreements, and even on-stage fall-outs, Liam and Noel Gallagher seemed more eager to keep their infamous sibling rivalry alive than making any steps to reconcile. What made their ongoing feuding even more intriguing was the fact that, even in the middle of mutual spitfires, you never really could tell whether they were serious or not.
But the Gallaghers’ frequent jabs at each other didn’t just keep fans entertained; it both fed into and dissolved any speculation about a future reunion, with some suggesting the flames served to hint at them one day choosing to rekindle their notorious energy for a reunion tour. Others, however, had resigned themselves to the fact that it was never going to happen—until it did.
There are still questions about whether Liam actually was the one to reach out following his tweet suggesting he called his brother, especially considering some of the remarks he made in the years prior about his stubbornness. However, certain comments made by Noel suggest this was the most likely step that sparked their reunion after he told Talksport in 2023, “He should call me because he’s forever going on about it.”
Still, the brothers’ longstanding bickering is a massive part of their charm, and a lot of fans are excited to experience their upcoming tour mainly out of fascination with how they might handle it. After all, it’s always a gamble with it comes to Liam and Noel, particularly when it’s unclear whether their harsh idiosyncracies are authentic or a ploy to gain a handful of laughs.
What’s more, some of their past disagreements are incidentally some of their most documented moments, whether they related to arguments on stage or concerned one of them heckling from within the audience during their shows. The latter would have likely been one of the more frustrating scenarios, especially when certain plans change at the last minute and threaten to derail the entire show.
One such occurrence was their infamous MTV Unplugged performance when Liam didn’t show up on stage just before they were set to begin. After claiming his absence to be due to a sore throat, he didn’t show up, leaving Noel to handle addressing the elephant in the room. “We just walked out and he wasn’t there,” he said, adding, “He was just like ‘I’m not doing it.” This left him addressing the audience: “Liam ain’t gonna be with us tonight cause he’s got a sore throat. So you’re stuck with the ugly four.”
However, during the performance, his brother kept shouting provocative remarks from in the wings. At first, it gained giggles from the audience, which encouraged him to continue throughout the rest of the show. However, he was also drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes the whole time, which seemed like a wave of the middle finger to Noel, who had been under the impression his brother wasn’t performing by his side because he was sick.
Plagued with an increasingly bored audience and a brother who wouldn’t quit, he reflected, “He wasn’t arsed about his big brother dying on stage,” adding, “Literally fucking dying.”
