Touring
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Meow Wolf, the arts and entertainment company known for its fantastical immersive installations, will open its newest location in Houston’s Fifth Ward neighborhood on Oct. 31.
News of the Halloween opening comes alongside the reveal of the theme for the venue: Radio Tave, an explorable radio station that will transmit visitors to, a press release says, “unexpected frequencies.” A play off of “radio wave,” the installation is set in a radio station in an alternative dimension and thus has a special focus on sound. Radio Tave will be made up of dozens of rooms designed by more than 100 artists, more than half of whom are based in Texas.
“Music and sound play an even bigger role in this exhibition than before,” Meow Wolf’s senior creative producer Susie Cowan tells Billboard. “We’ve got some incredible interactives that transform how people experience sound — things you can play with and explore that are just as fun to listen to as they are to look at. It’s a true audiovisual feast — it’s vibrant, one-of-a-kind and totally captivating.”
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Cowan adds that the space plans to “host musical performances and special events, just like what you’ve seen in our Denver and Santa Fe exhibitions” with programming announcements forthcoming. (The upcoming music calendars at the Denver and Santa Fe spaces include bands and DJs including The Polyphonic Spree and Tycho.)
Meow Wolf Houston
Tarick Foteh | Courtesy of Meow Wolf
Meow Wolf Houston marks the fifth Meow Wolf location in the U.S. and the second in Texas; its Dallas/Fort Worth installation opened in July 2023. The original Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, N.M., opened in 2016, with subsequent expansions to Denver, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, where an installation inside a movie theater is set to open in 2026. Each installation has a theme, with visitors working to unravel the storyline and mystery built into the design of each venue.
These concepts each typically take two to four years to create, with artists, storytellers, engineers and more contributing to each one. “For Radio Tave specifically,” Cowan says, “we wanted to create something that expanded the worlds we’ve built in Dallas with The Real Unreal and Santa Fe with House of Eternal Return. Starting with the idea of a community radio station, we used sound — music, audio, voice and sonic energy — as the central theme, driving the story and shaping the participant’s experience.”
Tickets for Radio Tave open to the general public on Oct. 1, with season pass holders and email subscribers able to get earlier pre-sale tickets later this month.
Meow Wolf Houston
Tarick Foteh/Courtesy of Meow Wolf
The space will also feature Cowboix Hevvven, a honky-tonk inspired working bar and restaurant with a jukebox offering 30 licensed songs by Texas artists. The Texas influence runs deep in the project, with many Texans working on the project and the team fabricating a fictional small East Texas town as the setting for the radio station.
“On top of that,’ says Cowan, “we’ve got 35 collaborating artists from Texas who have contributed to their own unique spaces, drawing inspiration from their roots, plus an additional 10 Houston artists who are part of our Art Team Task Force.” The space will also feature a plethora of Houston-specific Easter eggs for guests to discover.
“Houston is such a cultural hub, and we were immediately drawn to its vibrant complexity and rich artistic scene,” adds Cowan. “The city’s deep love for art really aligns with what Meow Wolf is all about — there’s creativity everywhere you look. We’re always inspired by the places we go, but working with Texas artists has been something special.”
Scalpers hoping to earn a big payout flipping Chappell Roan tickets likely just watched their profits vanish after the singer announced she was shutting down resellers charging outrageous markups for her Oct. 1 show in Franklin, Tenn.
The news was greeted with praise by fans who have watched the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer’s star rise to new heights this summer — as well as by questions from ticket buyers wondering how the singer was able to call a mulligan on tickets she’d already sold to ensure actual fans get to attend her show instead.
The answer isn’t totally clear — Roan’s reps did not respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment — but there’s enough information already available about the Franklin show to tell part of the story. It’s also worth noting that Roan isn’t the first artist to deal with scalpers trying to mark up fan-friendly $30 lawn tickets to as high as $900; in years past, major artists like Ed Sheeran and Eric Church, among others, have utilized the same strategy. And while not a perfect system, it’s still an impactful way to ensure that more fans have access to affordable tickets.
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In many ways, for a breakthrough artist like Roan, there are worse problems to have. Over the last year, thanks to the success of her 2023 album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, her work as a supporting act on Olivia Rodrigo‘s Guts World Tour and her breakout performances this summer at Lollapalooza and Coachella, Roan, as some say in music business parlance, is the blowing the f— up. Now, as with any big star, scalpers are taking advantage.
In one less extensive example of this, tickets for Roan’s Oct. 2 show at Walmart Amphitheatre near Rogers, Ark., were originally priced between $30 and $80 when they went on sale in June. Now, they’re selling for $300 to $1,200 on StubHub and other secondary sites — though in that case, only a couple dozen tickets, out of 11,000 total capacity, appear to be listed on StubHub.
But in Franklin, there were dozens, maybe hundreds, more resale tickets on sale for the show at the 7,500-capacity FirstBank Amphitheater. Located just 20 miles south of Nashville, Franklin is a much bigger music market than Rogers, and the price gouging for tickets apparently prompted someone from her team to work with reps from Ticketmaster to find out who is scalping those tickets and take them away from those responsible.
Catching scalpers on Ticketmaster, especially after a sale has been made, isn’t particularly complicated. While there are laws governing ticket ownership and rights, in most cases ticketing companies treat tickets like revocable licenses, meaning they have the right to disable tickets that a fan purchased and refund them their money if they are caught violating Ticketmaster’s terms of service.
For example, many scalpers will try to buy up as many tickets as possible using multiple credit cards. That’s a violation of Ticketmaster’s “limit per order” policy, which limits the number of tickets that can be purchased per order based on the event and demand for tickets.
Ticketmaster prohibits users from using multiple IP addresses or email addresses when buying tickets, so if someone successfully completed a purchase of a Chappell Roan ticket but was later found to have used multiple email addresses or a VPN to hide their IP addresses, that could be grounds for their tickets to be canceled and refunded. It wouldn’t take long for a couple of Ticketmaster executives to comb through the transactions for a 15,000-capacity show and find purchases tied to bots with no IP addresses, or large purchases from newly-created accounts linked to free email services.
Once those transactions are identified, most are investigated and the purchases canceled. In Roan’s case, the canceled tickets were pooled and sold via lottery to fans who had to register in advance for a shot at buying them. Though it’s unclear how many tickets were canceled and reissued to fans, it’s unlikely that more than a few hundred tickets were involved.
While this practice is popular with fans and punishes amateur scalpers, there is an argument to be made that, in some cases, it enriches professional scalpers who are better at avoiding detection by reducing the number of tickets available on resale sites and in turn driving up the price for those tickets that aren’t taken down.
But the effort isn’t specifically aimed at eliminating all ticket scalping. Instead, it’s about randomly disrupting the predatory practices of scalpers targeting vulnerable shows by rising artists like Roan who don’t want to charge fans hundreds of dollars to see their concerts. And by focusing on high-margin shows where scalpers are set to make big paydays, artists like Roan really can impact the pocketbooks of professional ticket resellers and help keep more of their tickets affordable for fans.
Heart‘s first tour in five years is back on! Following the postponement of sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson’s North American shows this summer due to the former’s recent cancer scare, the rock band has announced plans to resume their Royal Flush Tour with a slew of new dates scheduled for 2025. Sharing an animated video […]
Fans in North America are going to have to wait a little bit longer to say goodbye to Childish Gambino. On Monday (Sept. 9), Donald Glover announced that he’s pushing back the remainder of his North American farewell tour dates in order to prioritize his wellbeing. “hey everyone,” he tweeted. “unfortunately i have to postpone […]
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.