The Irish Times view on Oasis in Dublin: a long, lucrative after-party

From the very start, Oasis were accused of being little more than a tribute act to other people’s greatness. Beatles riffs with more denim, glam stomp without the glitter. The critics called their anthems plodding, their lyrics banal, their worldview narrow to the point of claustrophobia. But unlike every other Britpop contender of the mid-1990s, Oasis never needed to win the argument. They won the crowd. And somehow, 30 years later, their grip on the collective memory is tighter than that of Blur, Pulp, Radiohead or any of the cleverer, sharper acts who once shared the charts with them.

For years, it was never entirely clear what the point of Oasis was. They weren’t innovators. They weren’t protest singers. They weren’t interested in the world beyond their own reflection. Now the answer seems obvious: they wrote nostalgic terrace anthems for teenagers and twentysomethings – songs perfectly calibrated for a shared roar after a few pints – and those songs have only grown more potent as their original audience has moved inexorably into its 40s and 50s.

Which is why, this weekend in Croke Park, men who once moshed in parkas are queueing patiently for contactless bar service, grumbling about surge-priced tickets and comparing the merits of various ¤40 tour T-shirts. Oasis in 2025 is a collision between the raw, communal thrill of those old choruses and the finely tuned machinery of the modern live-music economy. Every singalong comes with an email receipt.

And yet, when the lights drop and the first chords of Live Forever or Don’t Look Back in Anger hit the summer evening air, the grievances vanish. Tens of thousands sing not in defiance, but in recognition a reassurance that some things, however mocked or commodified, still sound exactly the same. Oasis never needed to reinvent themselves. Their fans grew up, got mortgages and brought their middle-aged disposable income with them.