‘Like Christ’s Rebirth’: Forgiveness At The Heart Of Oasis Reunion
(REVIEW) Oasis, the Manchester-born rock n’ roll band who defined the ‘90s British pop music scene, were broken up between the years 2009 and 2024. They announced a reunion tour in 2025.
In “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” the newly-released documentary film accompanying last-year’s tour, one fan says their reunion was “like the rebirth of Christ.”
The band, led and sustained by the relationship between brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, was once known for what Noel called “great chaos.” Drinking, doing drugs, getting banned from hotel chains and kicked out of Holland. That chaos, in part, was what led to the abrupt demise of the band before their final tour had officially come to an end. Even in their best years, the band mythos was fueled by the “sibling rivalry” between the brothers.
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It meant last year’s tour was highly anticipated — largely because, in the initial lead-up, many anticipated they wouldn’t make it through again.
“Don’t Look Back in Anger” is a definitive record that those fears didn’t come true. Noel and Liam as a unit are stronger than ever, and the band is fully back in business. They’re even preparing a 2027 tour, with tickets on sale a convenient two weeks after the film’s theatrical release.
Part documentary and part unabashed concert film, “Don’t Look Back in Anger” is undoubtedly, on some level, a smart marketing move to sustain the hype for a second tour.
Noel admits it himself, very early on: the tour, and by extension the documentary, are “a chance to change the narrative of the band.” There’s a wholesome feeling to everything, possibly aided by the fact that Disney is the primary distributor.
But the wholesomeness doesn’t feel disingenuine or purely for the sake of image. In fact, the whole film is earnest about its message of peace and love.
It has testimonials from fans whose lives have been impacted by Oasis in interesting ways and an abundance of concert footage, but it focuses on forgiveness above all things, communicating a universal message to an audience of fans: if Noel and Liam can forgive each other, you can forgive anyone, too.
It isn’t a connection the film has to work very hard to make. Oasis’ music and message has always been easily transmutable to their audience, and fans interviewed for the documentary overwhelmingly share that their takeaway from the reunion is that people should forgive and love one another.
But the message, no matter how simple, is nevertheless profound.
Irish-Catholic heritage
The Gallaghers, born to Irish immigrants, were raised Catholic, though they stopped attending church after their parents’ divorce. In the past three decades of fame, both have discussed religion in the same way: they no longer practice and no longer believe in a traditional God if at all, but Irish Catholicism is part of the culture they grew up in.
So it was a nice touch, if not a surprise, for the film to feature clips from a homily given at the Gallaghers’ old parish on the day they were set to play Manchester last year.
The homily also centers around forgiveness, featuring a reading from the Gospel in which Peter asks Jesus, “How many times should I forgive my brother? Seven times?” and Jesus instead instructs him to forgive “seventy times seven times.”
It’s meaningful, and it’s certainly thematically relevant, with the same on-the-nose emotion that permeates the whole documentary. It’s also an interesting choice for the film to take such an explicitly Christian slant, particularly when Oasis is by no means attempting to rebrand into the religious rock genre.
A ‘religious experience’
Though the experience of traditional religion may begin and end with a clipped sermon, Oasis is undoubtedly spiritual — or, as Liam would say, “biblical.”
In the documentary, Liam expresses a long-held belief that the world started falling apart because the band broke up. He later declares that “Oasis saves.”
Likewise, they call their concerts a “religious experience” for fans, which is hard to deny. Watching the footage of tens of thousands of people sharing the same stadium for a few hours of high-energy music, enraptured even to the point of tears, conveys just a fraction of how it must feel to live through the event (so you really should consider buying those tickets).
At one point, the camera cuts to a man in the posture of prayer, singing along to their rock ballad “Slide Away.” The film conveys with urgency just how serious this music is for fans around the world. It conveys, too, how serious that message of love and forgiveness is for these people.
But while the film may provide emotional encouragement to forgive, it certainly doesn’t serve as a guidebook.
The brothers, interviewed together in a previously-rare display of unity are clearly overjoyed to have put an end to their decades-long public feud. They have nothing but glowing praise for one another; Noel emphasizes that when they reconciled, “it was all forgiven without saying a word.”
I’m sure I cast doubts on this statement a little selfishly — as a fan myself, I’d love to know all the dirt behind their breakup and what finally set them on the path to reunion. It’s a common desire for fans, and it isn’t necessarily something the artist has to fulfill.
However, glossing over the messy, difficult process of forgiveness when it’s such a focus cheapens the message somewhat.
But maybe that’s too much to ask for from a movie that serves just as much as promotional material as it does a feel-good story of brotherly love. It was effective in one way, at least: I’ll be trying my hardest to get concert tickets myself.
And for plenty — maybe even for the nearly three million people who attended last year’s tour — it seems that simple message of forgiveness is enough. Oasis saves, after all.
Jillian Cheney is Religion Unplugged’s Senior Culture Correspondent. She writes about film, TV, music, art, books and more.