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Oasis Reunion Tour Is Definitely Maybe a Win for Tribute Bands, Too
As the Gallagher brothers prepare for next year’s performances, Oasis covers bands are reaping the benefits with their own sold-out shows.
It’ll be another seven months before Oasis, the Britpop band led by Liam and Noel Gallagher, puts aside 15 years of sibling rivalry at a stadium in Cardiff, Wales, for a most unlikely reunion.
But it already felt like the comeback was in full swing one recent Saturday at the Flowerpot, a pub in Derby, England, when Jon Boswell sauntered onstage just after 9 p.m. and surveyed a sold-out crowd. The 44-year-old singer was wearing dark shades and a black rain jacket, looking remarkably like Liam Gallagher.
“We’re gonna take the roof off,” Boswell said, with all the swagger of the real Liam. Then, Boswell’s band — Ohasis — launched into “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” an early Oasis hit. Soon, the 250-strong audience was bellowing Boswell’s every word back at him, many lifting pints of lager above their heads as they sung, spilling the contents onto the floor.
In recent years, many fans of blockbuster acts likes Oasis, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have been priced out of seeing their live shows, with spiking demand pushing the cost of tickets, hotels and travel around the tours sky high. But in the case of Oasis’s reunion, that inflation has produced unexpected beneficiaries: Britain’s many tribute bands.
“It’s been mad,” Boswell said in an interview, noting that after the Gallagher brothers announced their reunion plans in August, promoters had “inundated” Ohasis with gig and festival offers.
