Ouça esse episódio em: https://open.spotify.com/episode/07TwQCAu8rEZYOyeYd18ja?si=NLWcHekqQ1aVlUXZgk9WGg
Hello, everyone! I’m finally back from my trip to England. I spent a little more than two weeks there. It was refreshing, joyful and I was lucky enough to be there the day Oasis announced their reunion!
Well first I have to be honest here: I’ve always been more of a Blur fan, but I also like Oasis, and I can’t say I wasn’t happy with their comeback, because I need good music flooding the stream services and radios. I need to listen to at least one song being played out there with a voice that is not auto tuned. If you know what I mean…
On the 27th of august, when they deployed that bombshell over the world, I grabbed the Evening Standard edition that was available on the double-decker with a picture on the cover of Lian and Noel together for the first time after 17 years. It also brought the headline: “It’s on! Oasis reunite for 14 gigs (and more to come)”. And yeah, more indeed came and now they are 19 gigs. The first starting in Cardiff on July 4th and the last in London on September 28th, of course, in Wembley! Heaton Park, in Manchester, their home, will be the venue of 5 gigs.
So, a lot of the buzz around this reunion has been all about the Gallagher brothers – their relationship drama, the scramble for tickets, and whether some of the younger female fans even belonged at the show. That last part actually got Noel’s daughter, Anaïs Gallagher, pretty fired up. She called out some of the fans for being ageist and sexist. Meanwhile, music critic Alexis Petridis threw in his two cents, saying maybe Noel’s split from his wife – which, by the way, reportedly set him back £20 million – might’ve played a role in the brothers getting back together.
Then you’ve got Sacha Lord, who’s basically the guy looking after Manchester’s nightlife economy, saying the reunion could bring a cool £15 million to the region. But not everyone’s thrilled – the Maldron Hotel chain in Manchester was slammed for allegedly cancelling bookings so they could resell rooms at jacked-up prices, though they claimed it was just a case of overbooking.
And, over in Scotland, Live Nation UK isn’t exactly in the good books either. They got called out by housing activists and some politicians in Edinburgh for scheduling shows during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which already has the city’s hotels and Airbnbs bursting at the seams.
Okay, so things got pretty crazy with the ticket sales. Some people reported having over a million others ahead of them in the queue, while some said they were stuck in a ‘queue for the queue.’ To make matters worse, others got hit with 503 error messages and were even flagged as bots. Ticketmaster didn’t get off easy either – they caught a lot of heat for selling ‘In Demand’ and ‘Official Platinum’ tickets with dynamic pricing, which seriously jacked up the prices. They tried to defend it, but The Guardian’s Josh Halliday said he had only 10 seconds to decide on his tickets. No pressure, right?
Naturally, people started venting their frustrations online, and before long, #shambles was trending on Twitter. Hundreds of fans also filed complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority. Even Twickets, a resale platform, came under fire for their high fees, which led the founder to step in and cap fees at either ‘10% + a 1% transactional fee’ or £25, whichever was lower.
By September 1st, Loudersound was reporting that two nosebleed seats for the July 26 gig were listed on Viagogo for an eye-watering £23,603 each. With that, the UK government announced they were going to investigate this dynamic pricing mess. A few days later, Oasis added two more Wembley dates with an invitation-only ticket sale. And, to top it off, the Competition and Markets Authority launched an investigation into whether Ticketmaster had broken any laws.
Well, I guess this says all about the impact Oasis reunion has caused in the UK. Yeah, don’t forget this is a United Kington tour! Let’s just wait what happens when they announce their world tour.
