Touring
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In late September, Oasis announced an unlikely reunion after a 15-year hiatus. Brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher shared an announcement that they would play a string of stadium dates in the U.K. and Ireland in 2025 at London’s Wembley Stadium, Manchester’s Heaton Park and beyond.
First formed in 1991 in their native Manchester, the brothers eventually split in 2009 following a backstage altercation in Paris. Both enjoyed successful solo outings since then, amassing a combined 10 No. 1 albums between them in the U.K. (six for Liam, four for Noel).
The announcement arrived hot on the heels of anniversary reissues of their first two records, 1994’s Definitely Maybe and 1995 follow-up (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?. It conjures up sheer excitement and plenty of questions; below, Billboard runs through the biggest talking points to keep a beady eye on.
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Ticket Sale Furor
Demand was high for the dates announced to take place next July and August. A statement from the band said that over 10 million fans from 158 countries were attempting to purchase tickets on the initial general sale date (Aug. 31). All dates are completely sold out.
However, there has been considerable blowback to the sale strategy and a particular ire towards Ticketmaster. After a long wait – queue numbers reached above 500,000 for a single date – some fans were dismayed by Ticketmaster’s use of the “in-demand” dynamic ticket pricing model for tickets. The face value of certain tickets rose from £135 to over £350, forcing fans to make quick, expensive decisions on how much they could afford to buy for tickets. There has been anger that the demand may have inflated the price of tickets.
The band have since responded claiming that they “at no time had any awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used” in the sale process. They have since announced two new dates for Wembley Stadium on Sept. 27-28, 2025 and that the ticket sale process will be an “invitation only ballot” for fans who did not land tickets the first time around.
The story is unlikely to end there. The U.K. government has promised an investigation into the dynamic pricing model and the U.K.’s Competition and Market Authority is undertaking an “urgent review.” Ticketmaster has yet to make a statement regarding the on-sale process.
All Around The World
Fans outside of the U.K. are clamouring for their opportunity to see the band perform live and it appears they will get their wish. Upon initial announcement, the band said they had plans to take Oasis Live ‘25 to continents outside of Europe following the conclusion of their initial run. A billboard taken out by Amazon Music in New York City’s Times Square appears to be teasing a run of U.S. dates in the near future.
Battle of the Band
Oasis’ lineup has been changeable since their formation in 1991 with an array of members coming and going. We know for certain that Noel and Liam will be performing, but who will join them?
The band’s original rhythm guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs – who battled cancer in recent years – is set to be included, as well as his eventual replacement Gem Archer. The latter performed as a member of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds in recent years.
Alan White, the band’s drummer between 1995 and 2004, has teased his involvement on his social media profiles. The group’s original drummer Tony McCarroll has claimed that he is unlikely to be involved. He told MailOnline that while he was “happy” about the news, neither brother had reached out and that “I’m not holding my breath.” Time will tell if Andy Bell, bassist between 1999 and their eventual breakup in 2009, will be involved. Bell has songwriting credits on each of Oasis’ last three albums.
“Today Is Going To Be the Day…”
But why are the pipes of peace playing now? A reunion has been discussed extensively by both brothers (and the press) throughout their solo careers, with Liam being the keener of the pair. In 2023, Noel said that his team “should call mine” and get the reunion done.
There are massive commercial opportunities for both the duo. They’re expected to clear £50 million each after tax for the initial run of shows, and they’ve partnered with Levi’s, Amazon and Urban Outfitters on a new merchandise run. Sales and streams of their back catalog, namely debut album Definitely Maybe, are rising rapidly.
It must have proved a timely opportunity to get Noel on board. He and Sara McDonald, whom he married in 2011, filed for divorce in Jan. 2023. He’s also discussed next year being the earliest opportunity for him to consider selling the publishing rights to his back catalog. The master rights to the band’s material (including hits like “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back In Anger”) are set to revert back to him in 2025.
New Album?
The Gallaghers putting animosity aside and getting back in the studio may seem unlikely, but stranger things have happened. Fans have noted that Liam had been sharing cryptic clues regarding the band’s reunion for months on his X profile. In July, one fan asked what he was doing on that day with Liam replying “photo shoot,” now widely believed to be the comeback’s official photography shoot with brother Noel.
Back in April, another hopeful asked when the recording of a new Oasis album would begin. His response? “November.” Perhaps all the clues have been hiding in plain sight….
Oak View Group is set to take over hospitality at four OCESA venues in Mexico City, it was announced Monday (Sept. 9).
OCESA, one of the leading live entertainment companies in Mexico, said that Oak View Group’s OVG Hospitality has been selected to “redefine the culinary and hospitality experiences” at Estadio GNP Seguros, Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Centro Citibanamex and Palacio de los Deportes.
The partnership will see OVG Hospitality upgrade experiences at concerts, sporting events and business gatherings by introducing premium services, innovative technologies and a broader range of menu options.
“By merging OCESA’s unmatched expertise in hosting world-class events with OVG Hospitality’s leadership in premium hospitality, we are poised to elevate the fan experience across Mexico, starting with these iconic venues,” said Chris Granger, president of OVG Hospitality’s parent company OVG360, in a statement. “This partnership marks a pivotal expansion of Oak View Group’s presence into Latin America, and we’re particularly excited and humbled to partner with OCESA. As hard-working operators ourselves, we appreciate their entrepreneurial spirit, their bold thinking, and their commitment to music fans across the country.”
As the exclusive food and beverage provider, OVG Hospitality will integrate its industry-leading services across OCESA’s various venues, partnering with local, regional and national vendors to craft menu items that reflect Mexico’s rich culinary heritage. Plans include enhancing the premium experience in suites and clubs, introducing new menu selections and market concepts throughout the year, and integrating technology to streamline ordering and payment processes to reduce wait times.
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While the initial roll out will include nly the four Mexico City venues, the partnership is expected to expand to additional venues starting in January. Additionally, OVG Hospitality will help OCESA introduce new premium spaces and corporate hospitality options at select locations.
OCESA is renowned for promoting over 3,000 events annually, drawing nearly six million attendees across Mexico. Its portfolio of venues includes the recently remodeled 65,000-seat Estadio GNP Seguros; the expansive Centro Citibanamex, a convention center with two million square feet of meeting and exhibition space; and a diverse collection of multi-use venues, theaters, arenas, festival grounds and stadiums.
It was not a drill Friday night (Sept. 6) in Brooklyn. Usher-mania had arrived. After having serenaded the nation for two-and-a-half-years with the hottest Las Vegas residency in the land, and readjusting his crown at the Super Bowl XLVIII halftime show, the R&B icon brought his Ursher-issance to the Barclays Center with a show-stopping blitz that proves he’s operating at a new prime.
For the thousands of fans who packed out the first of four sold-out shows as part of his Past Present Future tour, the night was special for several reasons. For some, it was a chance to scratch one larger-than-life concert off their bucket list (“I never got to see Michael Jackson live, but I’ve seen Beyoncé and now Usher,” said one concert-goer). For others, it was the opportunity to relive the headline-making My Way the Vegas Residency experience (“We saw him in Vegas, too,” gushed another excited fan). But the number one objective for everyone on this night (including this writer) was simple: “Gonna boogie, tonight…”
The aptly titled tour, which launched in August with two sold-out performances in Washington, D.C., lived up its namesake as the king of R&B left the borough known to keep it thorough in a warm blanket of nostalgic and euphoric bliss. Much of the two-hour show felt less like a concert and more of a celebration of the man whose music has soundtracked lives, redefined a genre, and shifted the pop-culture landscape over the last 30 years. But age is furthest from the mind when watching the singer, especially as his liquid movements evokes the same “how’s he still performing at this level” wonderment that stalks LeBron James. Whether pop-locking, leaping, or standing next to a video of his younger self, the timelessness of Ursher did indeed writ large over the course of the night.
At around 9:30 p.m., the singer popped up on stage, commanding court with the kind of spellbinding aura that Michael Jackson exemplified during his fan-faint-outs era, and opened with “Coming Home,” the title track from his latest chart-topping outing. He followed that up with “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home),” which quickly summoned ecstatic gasps from the audience mid “I just wanna get your attention…” Like that, the sold-out audience went down memory lane.
After “1993” appeared on the screen, along with a digitally-rendered teenage version of the singer, he danced along to a medley of his earlier records — “Call Me a Mack,” which originally appeared on the 1993 Poetic Justice soundtrack, “Think of You” and “Can U Get With It.” Soon after, the “You Make Me Wanna” singer time-shifted through the decades, as the capacity-crowd, decked in their flyest and finest, played the role of back-up singers — and, judging by the swaying bodies in the aisles and rows, back-up dancers, too. Spreading love is the Brooklyn way, after all. The Grammy award-winning showman floated on that cloud of love through the night, cascading through a plethora of his genre-defying hits that kept those aisles and rows rocking in a rhythmic trance. He traveled to 1997, performing “My Way” and “You Make Me Wanna” to resounding shrieks before loading up tunes from the 2000s with “U Remind Me” and “U Don’t Have To Call.”
By the time he got to his diamond-certified magnum opus, Confessions — an album that celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, after spawning four No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100 chart — it was sheer pandemonium. There was “Caught Up,” followed by some of “Yeah!” before the song was abruptly interrupted by a “system malfunction” alert on the screen. But ever the consummate performer, Usher kept the show rolling by flipping the chronological script, hitting shuffle, and pulling out the roller skates for “Don’t Waste My Time” and “Love in this Club.”
As concupiscent shrills showered him through “Nice & Slow,” he operated with the eros of the moment — stripping down to a white tank top, jeans and his signature “U” diamond pendant — and saucily mime-humped the mic stand after having already turned up the heat with “Lovers and Friends.” If that wasn’t enough, the rapt audience melted at the knees once his sterling silver vocals belted out that well-known falsetto to “Superstar.”
And there were a number of other superstars in the house, as well. After prowling through the audience while singing “There Goes My Baby,” he spotted and serenaded celebrities Taraji P. Henson (“You starting the celebration of your birthday early,” he beamed), Victoria Monet, who danced along with the singer to “On My Mama,” and rapper Yung Miami. Not long after, he brought out Fat Joe and Ja Rule, who also won the crowd over with their string of classics, including “What’s Luv” and “Put it On Me.”
As the night wound down, with energy levels depleted following run-throughs of “OMG” “There Goes My Baby,” and “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” among others, Ursh, now wearing a glittering blue leather Vanson motorcycle jacket, sent the capacity-sized arena into a tizzy when he finally unleashed “Yeah!” without interruption. “I was able to turn Barclays into the house of Usher,” he said. A fitting way to close out a hit-filled spectacle that stamped an emphatic “Watch this” for those still wondering “how’s he still performing at this level?”
But that’s not all, here are the seven best moments from night one of Usher’s four-night rendezvous in Brooklyn.
Unmatched Performer
David Gilmour raised some eyebrows during the summer. In an electronic press kit shared with press, the Pink Floyd guitarist commented that his new album, Luck and Strange, is “the best album I’ve made since Dark Side of the Moon, since 1973.”
That’s certainly a bold comparison — though in subsequent conversation Gilmour notes that Dark Side‘s successor, Wish You Were Here, is actually his favorite Pink Floyd album. But it nevertheless made clear how happy he is with his fifth solo album, and first in nine years.
“The album feels like a solid body of cohesive work,” Gilmour, 78, tells Billboard via Zoom from the Astoria Recording Studio, in a houseboat docked on the Thames in London that he bought in 1986. “It’s the cohesiveness of the whole thing — the writing, the work, the thrill it still gives me to listen to it all the way through as an album. There’s a consistency of thought and of feeling that runs through it that excites me in a way that makes me make those comparisons.”
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The nine-track Luck and Strange is, he adds, the product of a “liberation” he felt going into the studio.
Gilmour was working on new material when the pandemic hit in 2020, bringing the world to a stop — but also opening some new vistas for him and his family. Gilmour’s wife and frequent lyricist Polly Samson published a novel, A Theatre For Dreamers, the week of lockdown, which scotched planned promotional appearances. Their son Charlie came up with the idea of doing livestreams, during which Gilmour would play some songs by Leonard Cohen, who was a character in the book.
“It started pretty much only on Holly’s book as a focus,” Gilmour recalls, “but then it became broader. We got our daughter Romany to sing along and play with me, and that showed me that we have got that lovely sort of family tonality that happens — Beach Boys, Everly Brothers, other people. These artists that we loved in the past. All these things came together to create a different mood and a different feeling for the making of this album. It left me feeling I don’t need to stick with any pre-rule book or anything that’s gone before. I can be freer to do anything I feel like. That became emphasized for me.”
As he set out to make Luck and Strange in earnest, Gilmour veered from previous collaborators such as Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, Chris Thomas and Bob Ezrin and brought in a new (and younger) face with Charlie Andrew, a Music Producers Guild Award winner who worked with alt-j on its Mercury Prize-winning An Awesome Wave, James, Bloc Party and others. One of his first questions — “Do we need another guitar solo here?” — made clear that Gilmour was open to fresh input this time out (though rest assured there are plenty of guitar solos on the album).
“His lack of being over-awed by my reputation was a big plus for me,” Gilmour says. “Pink Floyd wasn’t one of his influences…but (Andrew) liked the music I was working on, and I liked him. Polly liked him very much; she found him, really, and my acceptance of what he was showing me and the direction he was proffering was an interesting and exciting way for us to be moving forward.”
“I didn’t specifically know a lot of his previous work, and I purposefully didn’t immerse myself in it as I just wanted to come at it with a fresh angle,” Andrew tells Billboard. “All I tried to do is keep it coherent as a body of work and make sure that there’s a flow to it. When we started out one of the first things I asked David was, ‘What are we making this for?’ For me, there’s more to it than ‘here’s a bunch of songs’ and just release them. I think it should be a bit more of one whole thing. I know David thinks the same.”
Luck and Strange — recorded primarily at Mark Knopfler’s British Grove Studios — also features drummers Steve Gadd, Adam Betts and Steve DiStanislao and keyboardist Roger Eno and Rob Gentry, along with longtime bassist Guy Pratt, who started playing with Pink Floyd in 1987 and has remained by Gilmour’s side ever since. (He’s also part of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets band.)
“It felt much more like a family,” Gilmour says, “much more like a group of people working toward a common end than I’ve felt for quite awhile.”
While not a concept album, Gilmour acknowledges that themes of mortality and retrospection unite Luck and Strange’s mostly midtempo songs — two of which, “Black Cat” and “Vita Brevis,” are instrumentals, and one a cover of the Montgolfier Brothers’ “Between Two Points,” sung by daughter Romany. She plays harp on the album as well, while son Gabriel Gilmour provides some backing vocals. “You discover the record as you work on it,” producer Andrew notes. “You don’t start it knowing exactly what it’s going to be. I really wanted to understand what the lyrics were focusing on, and Polly has been an incredible help in that regard, taking me and the musicians through the lyrics and what they mean.”
Particularly poignant is Luck and Strange‘s title track, which began in 2007 and includes the late Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright, who was part of Gilmour’s touring band at the time.
“It’s wonderful to have a track that he’s actually a part of,” says Gilmour, who included a lengthy “barn jam” version of “Luck and Strange” as a bonus track. “Rick’s unusual playing style pours out of it and makes me sad that he’s not around to take more part in what I’m doing. Obviously, I worked on it later to add in these bridges and choruses and things. I don’t know why, in 2015 or ’14, that I didn’t listen to that track and go, ‘Yeah, let’s go,’ but this time it demanded to be heard and worked on, so we did.”
As Luck and Strange comes out Gilmour is gearing up for a tour, his first in eight years, that begins Oct. 9 with the first of six shows at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall. He’ll also play four Los Angeles area dates — starting Oct. 25 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., and moving to three concerts at the Hollywood Bowl — and five at Madison Square Garden in New York, wrapping up Nov. 10.
“I’m thinking more modern times than old times,” Gilmour says of the setlist, “but there’ll be some songs from the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s. All the way through, there’ll be some stuff, but I’m focusing perhaps a bit more on the new album and the newer material.” And, he hopes, there will be more new material in less than the nine years he took before making Luck and Strange.
“My intention is to gather some of these people together and get back and start working on something else in the new year,” Gilmour says. “What you want is a few things to get started with and hope it all starts flowing, and that’s what I’m hoping will happen.”
What started as a whisper soon became a cacophony. As the August Bank Holiday weekend approached the U.K. industry was abuzz with rumors that stadium dates had been booked and that the great divide between Noel and Liam Gallagher had been bridged. The following week (Aug. 27) Oasis released a statement saying that a truce had been reached and they would reunite. “The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over,” they said.
But how did the stars align exactly? It’s the question that everyone wants the answer to and, as of publication, we’re no closer to knowing. Beyond the reveal that the band would reunite to play a string of U.K. stadiums in 2025, there has been silence: no tell-all interview, or dispatches on Liam’s unfiltered, often hilarious, X (formerly Twitter) profile. Following the announcement, Noel did get cornered while out shopping by a brazen youngster who asked why the pair had fallen out. “‘Cause he stole my teddy bear,” Noel replied coyly.
Perhaps it’s purely for sentimental reasons. For years the pair fired insults at the other via the press. Liam took to calling Noel a “potato” and chiding his “cosmic pop” direction in his solo material. Noel gave as good as he got, saying that he didn’t listen to Liam’s solo material because “I can’t stand his voice” and dubbed the younger brother’s 2019 single “Shockwave” as “Shitwave.”
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But eventually there was a softening. In a clip released alongside the 30th anniversary of Definitely Maybe, Noel made a point of praising his brother’s vocal performances on the record. Last spring, he laid down the gauntlet to Liam to get a reunion sorted and to stop the chatter: “He should get his people to call my people.” Seemingly, the call worked.
Post-COVID, the ‘90s have never been so popular. The decade’s aesthetic – baggy clothing, long hair, middle partings – has infiltrated TikTok videos, as has the sounds of the generation of musicians that made it big in the era. Reunion shows for the band’s contemporaries (and rivals) Blur and Pulp over the past two summers were attended by both Gen Z and their parents. Social media users have made spurious links between the selection of a Labour government in this year’s general election and that of Oasis’ return. In 1997, Tony Blair capitalized on the Britpop movement and his left-wing Labour government was elected in a landslide victory. Noel was later seen hobnobbing at No. 10 with the elites he once chided.
Liam, who remains a youth icon despite his 51 years, has seized the initiative. Earlier this summer, he celebrated Definitely Maybe’s 30th anniversary with a dedicated U.K. tour, playing the album in full. The tour was wildly successful earning rave reviews and stellar ticket sales; by the time he reached the run’s final show at Reading Festival on Aug. 25, he was teasing the incoming reunion announcement during the show.
The commercial opportunities for reuniting were likely overwhelming. Music industry expert Professor Jonathan Shalit estimated that the shows stand to generate £400 million in income for the group and promoters including SJM Concerts and Live Nation. Noel and Liam are expected to clear £50 million each after tax from these shows alone. Billboard Boxscore reported that a reunion world tour could “easily out-gross and out-sell the band’s entire touring history.”
The band have already collaborated with fashion brands Levi’s, Urban Outfitters and even Amazon for new merchandise drops. Streams of the band’s back catalog are on the rise following the news of their announcement. The possibility of getting a new demographic into the back catalog on DSPs will sweeten their existing power on physical media: a reissue of Definitely Maybe is set to go in at No.1 on the U.K. Albums Charts this week, toppling Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet.
There have been setbacks, however. Last year, Noel announced that he and publicist Sara McDonald, his partner since 2000 and the mother of two of his children, would be divorcing. Reports earlier this year said that Gallagher paid a settlement of £20 million to his former wife. She also took ownership of their £8 million-valued mansion in London.
There’s potentially another sizeable payday looming for Noel, the band’s chief songwriter. In 2025, the publishing rights for the band’s entire back catalog – including “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and “Wonderwall” – will reportedly revert back to his ownership.
In recent years, there’s been continued interest from record labels and investment firms such as Hipgnosis to acquire the rights to some of music’s most lucrative catalogs. Queen recently sold their rights for an eye-watering £1 billion, while Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Katy Perry have also landed sizeable sums for their work.
A 2025 reunion would no doubt act as a thrilling advert for the breadth and potential for these songs as they potentially go up for sale. The opportunity to boost streams of the catalog – where much of the income will be generated – through a renewed presence in the spotlight is a shrewd one. Liam, who did not contribute any songwriting credits until 2000’s “Little James,” will likely not benefit from such a sale.
Despite the excitement and opportunities, Oasis have found themselves at the center of a storm. The use of Ticketmaster’s controversial “in-demand” dynamic pricing model meant that fans paid substantially higher prices than expected, particularly after queuing on the site for hours for a chance to purchase. Some reported paying over £350 for a ticket that initially was priced at £135. It has drawn the ire of fans, industry and politicians, with the government and the consumer watchdog Competitions Market Authority said to be “urgently investigating” the practice. The band have since responded saying that they had no “awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used.”
After 15 years of waiting, the reunion the world was waiting for finally happened. Can Messrs. Noel and Liam keep it together long enough for everyone to enjoy it? Definitely. Maybe…
Oasis officially announced its Oasis Live ’25 Tour across the United Kingdom and Ireland in August, marking the band’s first shows together in more than 15 years. It makes sense for the British group to kick things off overseas, but speculation has ramped up regarding a possible extension to North America – as the tour announcement included a hopeful statement of “plans are underway for (the tour) to go to other continents outside of Europe later next year.”
Looking back, how big of a touring act was Oasis during its original run, and what does that mean for a potential tour next year?
Oasis Live ’25 Tour is currently scheduled for 19 shows in stadiums across London, Dublin and the Gallagher brothers’ hometown of Manchester, England, and select other markets in the U.K., including two recently added shows at London’s Wembley Stadium due to “phenomenal public demand.” Next year’s stadium tour will be the band’s first stab at the outsized outdoor venues, but considering the activity surrounding the shows’ on-sale, it’s warranted. If the tour travels stateside, similar-sized shows would represent a major step up for the band.
The band’s last tour was the Dig Out Your Soul Tour in 2008-09, playing large theaters and scaled-down arenas in North America and Europe, with a mix of arenas and stadiums in Latin America. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, that run averaged a career-best 12,108 tickets per show worldwide, up 37% from its previous tour, which itself marked a 15% increase from its previous high.
Oasis peaked as a touring act throughout the 2000s, despite making its biggest chart impact across its first three albums from 1994 to 1997. Those – Definitely Maybe, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and Be Here Now – combined for 125 weeks on the Billboard 200 albums chart and six top 10 hits on the Alternative Airplay chart. In the 21st century, the band has spent about one-fifth of that time on the former chart and hasn’t returned to the top 10 on the latter. Still, their touring business kept blossoming, growing by 60% in average attendance and multiplying by four in average revenue.
While Oasis hasn’t released a studio album since 2008’s Dig Out Your Soul, it’s likely that its concert fortunes have continued to grow exponentially. Time away from the spotlight and the natural nostalgia cycle positions them alongside Blink-182, Green Day and My Chemical Romance, all of which have yielded enormous Boxscore results from reunion and anniversary tours in the last 24 months. MCR averaged $1.6 million per show in 2022-23 after an 11-year touring hiatus, which is about 10 times its prior peak.
Oasis operated closer to Green Day in terms of ticket sales in the ‘90s and ‘00s. Also oscillating between theaters and arenas during its first 15 years, Green Day has launched its first solo-headline global stadium tour in 2024, averaging $3.4 million and 38,000 tickets per show in Europe.
Further, Oasis has a unique element adding fuel to its fire, as the long-simmering feud between Oasis’ leading brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher has helped to grow the band’s mythology, and therefore making the 2025 tour announcement feel like a once-in-a-lifetime event. Once hailed “The Next Beatles,” Oasis’ mid-2020s return to the stage adds to their singular legend.
And while Oasis has revealed only U.K. and Ireland dates so far, fans far and wide have reacted. Following the Aug. 27 announcement, “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and “Wonderwall” both debuted on the Billboard Global 200 (dated Sept. 7), up 138% and 72% in official worldwide streams in the week of Aug. 23-29, according to Luminate. On the Sept. 14-dated chart, both may post triple-digit-percentage increases.
In the United States specifically, Oasis’ entire catalog of songs yielded 13.5 million official on-demand streams, up by 148% in the week ending Aug. 29. With similarly massive gains in the U.S. as around the world, the possibility of a U.S. stadium tour would make Oasis one of 2025’s biggest global touring acts.
Dating back to the fall of 1994, Oasis has grossed $45.2 million and sold 1.1 million tickets across 150 reported shows. Given the band’s long-awaited and unexpected reunion, the endurance of its catalog, and the general explosion of concert ticketing, a world tour would easily out-gross and out-sell the band’s entire touring history.
“Welcome to Pearl Jam’s 50th show in New York City,” Eddie Vedder said to a rapturous response on stage at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night (Sept. 4), the second of two shows the iconic band from Seattle played at the World’s Most Famous Arena this week.
“And for that we are grateful and want to pay that back. So enjoy yourselves to the finest — and Mike McCready promises to do the same,” he added, before the lead guitarist ripped into a searing version of “Evenflow,” playing an extended epic solo with his guitar behind his back.
That was one highlight of a show full of them, and one that captured the band in its element: pushing songs to the limit, having fun with the crowd and also getting serious about some of the big issues in the country and the world at large.
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“The rights of women are not just being threatened, they are already being taken away,” Vedder said after “Evenflow,” a handful of songs into the band’s two and a half hour set. “I know it’s a little early to be getting into this s–t, but let’s get it over with! So the right to choose issue, it used to involve religious fanatics, and then politicians got involved, not because they care one way or another, they just would like the votes. And it’s evolved into judges, and women of all ages are up against a Supreme Court. So there’s good news: It’s time to vote, and as the great Patti Smith said, people have the power. Never have truer words been spoken. Women, feel empowered; women, vote for your own interests, and help a sister out while you’re at it.”
The band then went into “Daughter,” with an extended outro to the melody of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In the Wall Pt. 2,” in which Vedder changed the lyrics to sing, “Keep your bans all off our bodies/ politicians leave our girls alone/ Judges leave our girls alone.”
It wasn’t the only time Vedder, wearing a Walter Payton Chicago Bears jersey, and the band addressed the outside world. On a day in which the U.S. saw another mass school shooting, in which four people were killed and more wounded at a high school in Georgia, the band pulled out a seldom-performed song from its sophomore album, Vs., called “Glorified G” — a cynical sneer at the false bravado of gun owners, with Vedder introducing it by saying, “I hate guns!” More poignantly, and more somberly, two songs later, the band played “Jeremy,” its first breakout hit from the group’s debut album, which is about a boy who brings a gun to school and shoots himself in front of his classroom bullies. Delivered with full energy, the subtext wasn’t lost.
Otherwise, the band clearly enjoyed the 50-show milestone, with Vedder telling a story of the first time he ever came to New York City (“as a Chicago kid, and then on the West Coast, I had never been East of Chicago before”) while introducing “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter In a Small Town,” while there were huge crowd reactions for the high-energy performances of songs such as “Rearviewmirror,” “Hail Hail” and “Do the Evolution.” (The latter, for this fan at least, takes on a different tenor after watching three episodes of the docuseries Chimp Crazy, but I digress.)
After a set break, Vedder came out solo to perform the Steven Van Zandt-penned “I Am a Patriot” and the latter-career gem “Just Breathe,” before bringing tour opener Glen Hansard — “Good human, great Irishman” — to the stage to perform the latter’s “The Song of Good Hope,” shouting out a few fans who had been going through rough times and saying that the song had helped him through troubles of his own. The full band — plus former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and producer Andrew Watt, who chipped in with a few solos over the evening — then returned for John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth” and the punk anthem “Sonic Reducer.”
The band then ripped through another rarity in fan-favorite “Leash” and its iconic anthem “Alive,” before Vedder brought Little Stevie himself on stage to run through a joyful “Rocking In the Free World,” complete with Hansard, Watt and the full arena lights on, before closing out with their unreleased classic “Yellow Ledbetter” and sending fans home into the Manhattan night.
Set List
“Garden”
“Corduroy”
“Hail Hail”
“Evenflow”
“Daughter – > Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2”
“Dark Matter”
“React Respond”
“Won’t Tell”
“Not for You”
“Wreckage”
“I Am Mine”
“Elderly Woman Behind the Counter In a Small Town”
“Glorified G”
“Do the Evolution”
“Jeremy”
“Waiting for Stevie” (with Andrew Watt)
“Rearviewmirror”
—
“I Am a Patriot” (Eddie solo)
“Just Breathe” (Eddie solo)
“The Song of Good Hope” (with Glen Hansard)
“Gimme Some Truth”
“Setting Sun”
“Sonic Reducer”
“Leash”
“Alive”
“Rockin In the Free World” (with Little Stevie, Glen Hansard and Andrew Watt)
“Yellow Ledbetter”
Despite his high-profile arrest for a DUI on June 18 on Long Island, Justin Timberlake didn’t see much impact on the ticket sales for his Forget Tomorrow World Tour, which is on track to gross more than $250 million over 87 dates, according to Billboard Boxscore data.
The estimated sales figure means each concert has generated about $2.8 million so far, before the tour stopped reported grosses when it crossed over into Europe, where he is playing 27 dates across Poland, Germany, Belgium, the U.K., the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and France. While there’s not much data on how European tickets are selling, there’s no indication that sales have fallen off. In fact, in the months leading up to it, there were plenty of signs that Forget Tomorrow was one of the strongest selling tours of Timberlake’s career.
In the immediate aftermath of Timberlake’s arrest — which produced the singer’s reported response, “This is going to ruin the tour,” which became a viral meme — prices on secondary sites for some of his shows did drop, in some cases to as low as $20 per ticket. But those drops were likely publicity stunts by resellers trying to drive traffic to their websites. Prices on the secondary market have since recovered: His Sept. 4 concert in Hamburg, Germany is selling for slightly over face value, with some floor tickets selling for 250 euros ($277), about 25% higher than face value for those seats.
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Prices get even higher on the secondary market in the U.S. when the tour returns in October, starting Oct. 6 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. While there are a handful of tickets listed below $75, the majority are marked up significantly, with lower bowl tickets selling for double the face value at more than $250 each and floor seats moving for over $400.
Even as the tour moves into softer markets like Orlando, Fla., and Milwaukee, prices on secondary resellers are holding strong and going for three to four times face value. By the time the Forget Tomorrow World Tour ends on Dec. 20 in St. Louis, it will very likely rank as one of the top 10 tours of the year and be remembered as one of Timberlake’s most profitable runs.
LONDON — The U.K. competition regulator has launched an investigation into Ticketmaster over its much-criticized sale of tickets for Oasis‘ reunion tour, which prompted hundreds of complaints from fans and fierce condemnation from British politicians.
The probe was announced by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Thursday (Sept. 5) – less than a week after tickets for Oasis’ Live ‘25 tour went on sale. The investigation will look into whether Ticketmaster broke consumer protection laws and engaged in “unfair commercial practices” by failing to notify ticket buyers in advance that prices would surge based on demand.
Standard standing, or general admission, tickets for Oasis’ U.K. and Ireland comeback tour were advertised as costing £148.50 ($195), but the price unexpectedly soared to £355.00 ($467) after several hours of being on sale due to high demand, provoking an angry backlash from fans.
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The CMA said its investigation would examine whether consumers were given “clear and timely information” to explain that the tickets would be subject to dynamic pricing, including the price they would eventually pay for purchases.
CMA officials will also look at whether people were put under pressure to buy tickets within a short period of time at a higher price than they originally intended to pay.
The competition regulator said it will be engaging with Ticketmaster, the band’s management and event organizers to gather evidence to assess whether the Live Nation-owned ticketing company broke consumer protection laws.
Officials will also consider whether to widen the scope of the investigation into other companies involved in the highly anticipated reunion tour, which is jointly promoted by Live Nation, SJM Concerts, MCD and DF Concerts.
Fans who purchased, or attempted to purchase, tickets from Ticketmaster for the shows are invited to submit evidence to the watchdog, including an screenshots they may have taken during the purchasing process. Submissions close on Sept. 19.
“It’s important that fans are treated fairly when they buy tickets, which is why we’ve launched this investigation,” said CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell in a statement.
“It’s clear that many people felt they had a bad experience and were surprised by the price of their tickets at check-out. We want to hear from fans who went through the process and may have encountered issues so that we can investigate whether existing consumer protection law has been breached,” said Cardell.
Ticketmaster did not respond to requests to comment when contacted by Billboard on Thursday. The company has previously stated that all ticket prices for Oasis’ reunion tour, including platinum, in-demand (dynamic) and VIP were set by the tour promoters and management.
In the fallout to the weekend’s ticketing furore, the British government said it would be looking into the practice of dynamic pricing for music concerts as part of its previously announced consultation into the secondary ticketing market.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it had received 450 complaints about “misleading claims about availability and pricing” concerning the sale of Oasis’ tickets by Ticketmaster. The regulator said it was “carefully assessing these complaints” and couldn’t comment further.
Responding to the hundreds of complaints from frustrated fans, a representative of Oasis said on Wednesday that the decision to apply surge pricing to its reunion shows was made by the band’s management and tour promoters, and “and at no time [the group] had any awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used.”
“While prior meetings between promoters, Ticketmaster and the band’s management resulted in a positive ticket sale strategy, which would be a fair experience for fans, including dynamic ticketing to help keep general ticket prices down as well as reduce touting, the execution of the plan failed to meet expectations,” said the statement from Oasis’ publicist. “All parties involved did their utmost to deliver the best possible fan experience, but due to the unprecedented demand this became impossible to achieve.”
Earlier this week, Oasis announced the addition of two new dates at London’s Wembley Stadium to next year’s tour, bringing the total number of shows up to 19. To avoid a repeat of the weekend’s on sale debacle, tickets to the two new Wembley shows are to be sold via an invitation only ballot that gives preference to fans who failed to get tickets in the initial launch.
According to organizers, the Oasis Live ’25 tour was the biggest concert launch ever seen in the U.K. and Ireland with more than 10 million people from 158 countries attempting to buy tickets, which all sold out in less than a day.
Oasis’ Liam and Noel Gallagher could not have chosen a better time to hit the road for their reunion tour — they don’t have to do press, they can skip the big festivals and they won’t be running into their ’90s Brit-pop rivals Blur.
Blur and frontman Damon Albarn already reunited last year and dropped a documentary in July, with plans to exit the road and go off-cycle in 2025. And instead of suffering through an NME interview or having to address their colorful history with TV host Graham Norton, the Gallaghers can just log on to Instagram and share a post with the band’s 3 million followers.
The on sale, covering 17 stadium shows — including three at the last minute due to demand — likely grossed $200 million to $225 million based on Billboard’s own calculations, conservatively estimating that each concert will gross $11 million to $13 million per show. Add in the two new shows the group announced earlier today — Sept. 27-28 at Wembley Stadium — and the potential gross jumps up to $209 million to $251 million for all 19 dates.
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Those huge grosses are not possible in a festival setting. Unlike the brothers’ final show on Aug. 22, 2009, at the now defunct V Festival at Weston Park in the U.K., the economics of touring have changed so much in the last decade that the band is forgoing all festivals in 2025, according to their Instagram page. Instead, the Gallaghers are playing only headline stadium shows in the U.K, where they will make far more money — possibly eight to 10 times as much as they would appearing atop the bill for Coachella, Glastonbury or any other festival.
For the only announced leg of the tour so far, the band is playing gigs in huge stadiums like Dublin’s Croke Park, which holds 80,000 people. While prices for the current tour vary greatly, the average sticker price for the top 20 stadium shows of 2023 was $138.
That means that if Oasis can pull off all 19 concerts, the boys could stand to gross $209 million, or about $11 million per show, just on the average ticket price of $138, not including platinum and VIP. Compare that to festivals, where attendance typically fluctuates between 30,000 to 80,000 fans who on average spend $133 per day on a ticket, often buying a weekend pass for $399. With that number in mind, about 30,000 tickets sold would generate $12 million, while 80,000 tickets would generate $32 million in sales. Not bad — but that gate money would have to be split between all headliners and all other performers across the festival’s three days.
Stadium shows have other advantages over festivals. Using pricing tools, promoters can charge more money per seat, while the best festivals can do is upcharge for VIP sections. And unlike festivals, stadium concert promoters can easily add additional concerts based on demand. By asking fans to register in advance, promoters from SJM Concerts and Live Nation already have a decent idea of how many people want to buy tickets and can add shows based off those numbers.
That’s bad news for festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury, which have built their reputations on reunion tours. However, there are still plenty of superstar acts looking for platforms to rip through another gig. Last year, No Doubt — one of the biggest bands of the 1990s — played a reunion set at Coachella, along with their Long Beach reggae-punk brethren Sublime; French DJ trailblazers Justice; and Blur, who could probably have toured after their Coachella set but instead decided to make a statement high up the lineup on the world’s biggest festival stage.
Sure, Blur would have made more money grinding their way around the world on a multicity tour — but sometimes bands have different priorities, and a high-profile set at Coachella is a major milestone that many acts want. But when it comes to cashing in on a reunion toward the $100 million mark, there are just not enough festivals to generate that much money.