I Have Completely Changed My Mind About The Oasis Reunion

Because nostalgia is good for the soul

Me, in love, in the 90s’

When the Oasis reunion was announced last year, I wrote this piece claiming that I had no interest. At the time, I believed it was unhealthy to glorify the past at the expense of appreciating the present.

I have changed my mind. And I feel so much better for it. As I've reported in recent weeks, I’ve been going through a difficult phase. And it might just be that a bit of old fashioned nostalgia has helped slowly ease me out of my fug.

As soon as the reviews and images started coming through from the Oasis gig in Cardiff on Friday night, I found myself pulled into all the excitement.

The truth is, I loved that period in the mid-90s when they provided a soundtrack to what seemed like endless sunny days of fun and abandon. You don't need to hear another fifty-year-old bloke banging on about how special it felt to be swept away on the tide of hedonism and collective excitement that engulfed young people during the fag end of Tory rule. But I can tell you that none of it is an exaggeration: to be young and have hair back in 1995 was all the things it was cracked up to be. Every day was an adventure.

I was a student in Brighton. I’d just passed my driving test and was deeply in love with the girl I would eventually marry. Brilliant, funny mates surrounded me. We had hardly any responsibilities and all we did was work out new ways to have the piss out of life every day. In my mind, we were always on the pebble beach with plastic pints of lager in our hands and the sun beating down on our heads.

One of my best mates from that time, Nick, messaged me on Friday about those times. We were both finding ourselves slipping into Oasis nostalgia. He reminded me that our defining anthem back then was the song ‘It 's Good To Be Free,’ with its deeply resonant refrain: ‘It‘s the little things that make me so happy, all I wanna do is live by the sea.’

There was something so inclusive and hopeful about Noel Gallagher’s lyrics back then. That’s why my generation regards those songs as anthems. In their anoraks and trainers, Oasis seemed so relatable to ordinary British kids like me who had grown up in little houses and crumbling schools. They allowed us to all share in their optimism and excitement. They permitted us to live a life of thrills and swagger. Remember, this was not long after Thatcher had fucked off out of our lives. Most of us had been conditioned to view ourselves as miserable peasants trapped under the boot heel of her barmy individualist regime.

“I can’t tell you the way I feel because the way I feel is oh so new to me.”

While there have always been clever-clogs who snipe at the music for being derivative or stodgy, the truth is that most of us feel love for Oasis because of the memories their songs conjure about our own lives. Every time I hear the line: “I think you’re the same as me, we see things we’ll never see,” I think of my wife, Anna, lying beside me in a tiny, scruffy campus dorm on a Spring morning, the sun beating through the little window, Live Forever playing from a portbale CD player, twenty years old and consumed by a euphoric sense of possibility. All the things I wanted back then, I now have. It’s good to remind myself of that.

These last few weeks have been tough for me. I have been anxious, fearful, and occasionally despondent. I couldn’t work out why. I think I had been neglecting myself for too long. I’d been focused on work and responsibility and not reflected enough on my mental and emotional state. Suddenly, everything got a bit overwhelming.

But tricky times like this encourage you to reflect - and I think I have learned a lot about myself by doing so. I realised that I had drifted into being a bit of a grumpy old man over the past year. I have carried daft resentments, bits and bobs of anger and even a dash of bitterness around with me.

After announcing that I was feeling low, I got so many lovely messages from people I know (and many that I don’t). And I was reminded that all that really matters is love and connection.

I have been filled with gratitude for the people in my life and all the wonderful things that I have been privileged to experience over the years. As my mate Nick said to me while we were sharing our nostalgic exchange on WhatsApp: “It’s good to embrace getting older and look at all the things you’ve done.”

I closed my heart a little bit for a while over the last year. I stopped looking at life from a position of gratitude. Perhaps I allowed myself to become preoccupied with life’s little irritations, micro-disappointments, and small daily frustrations.

I forgot what I learned in the early days of my sobriety: to let go of the stuff I can’t control. Life will consistently deliver little buckets of shit (yes, I suppose they were even apparent in the mid-90’s, although I can't recall any), but you can't let them shape your whole perspective.

I have started to crawl out of my misery by simply shifting my focus away from the transient bullshit and towards the permanent beauty of my life. Not just the stuff I am privileged to have around me now - like friends, family, an enjoyable work life, a dog a cat and a home that I love - but all the experiences I have had along the way, throughout my life which has, by any measure, been one of immense fun, happiness and good fortune.

Rather than cynically dismissing the past, I have recently immersed myself in it. Definitely Maybe and What’s The Story have been playing on repeat. I’ve reconnected with old mates. I have made amends with a few people I had fallen out with (I can strongly recommend this), and I have taken time each day to meditate on all the stuff I feel lucky to have experienced in an imperfect but excellent existence.

I have eaten curry. I have watched The Simpsons. I have listened to Oasis. These are the little things that bring me so much happiness. The stuff that always delivers. I’ve gone back to basics. And it is working a treat. Thank you to everyone who has reached out with kind words during this challenging period. I’m almost better. It might just take a couple more listens to Slide Away to get me back to 100%.

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Some services, links and phone numbers to help you through the tough times

https://www.samaritans.org/ Tel 116 123

https://www.thecalmzone.net

@YoungMindsUK 0800 018 2138

@CharitySane 0300 304 7000

https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/

https://cocaineanonymous.org.uk/

https://andysmanclub.co.uk/

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/gambling-addiction/