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As you observe tens of thousands of Oasis fans make their way loudly down from Wembley Park tube station towards England's national stadium, dads and lads from the Home Counties giving it their best biblical swagger, all bants and bravado, beers and bugle, it's difficult not to feel a warm glow of affection for the resilience of the human spirit.
Doubtless hundreds of those sporting retro Brother-sponsored Manchester City shirts today were also inside Wembley in May for the FA Cup Final, when Pep Guardiola's team surrendered meekly to south London's Crystal Palace, or were at the Emirates in February when the former Premier League champions were creamed 5-1 by north London's Arsenal, and exited the stadium with the Erling Haaland-inspired terrace anthem "Stay humble you cunt" ringing in their ears. And yet, as a former England captain once memorably urged, we go again, full of hope and dreams, battered but unbroken, mad for it for once. For this is the attitude that the people's champions, Britpop overlords Oasis, instilled within us from day one. It meant that fans old and new always held on to the hope of estranged brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher settling their differences and reuniting their group. And now that they're back, their return was only ever going to be spectacular.
After years of speculation, that long-wished-for reunion was announced last August with the sort of gravity one might expect in the wake of puffs of white smoke emerging from the Sistine Chapel chimney.
"The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see." Epic stuff.
Millions and millions of us duly tried to "come see". But even with 19 stadium shows booked in the UK and Ireland - Wembley alone hosting 630,000 fans across seven nights - demand for Live '25 tour tickets was always going to outstrip availability. And as such, for all the lairyness on display on Wembley Way, it's underpinned by an intangible but undeniable shared sense that we are all privileged to be here for The Second Coming (Wembley V).
Obviously, some of us were present first time around too. I first saw Oasis at The Limelight club in Belfast on Sunday, September 4, 1994, with the price of admission just £6.75. That night, before they went on stage, the band learned that their debut album - also their best album, fyi - had entered the UK chart at number one. And what a wild, mad, out-of-control ride it has been from there to here.
For the record, whatever you might read in revisionist histories, not every Oasis gig was a transcendent communion of artist and audience. Those legendary, era-defining Knebworth shows in 1996 were, in reality, overly-populated by curious new recruits who greeted any selection from Definitely Maybe with blank stares and indifference, while the atmosphere at their three-night-stand in London's Finsbury Park in July 2002 was polluted by, if memory serves, the largest assembly of hateful, obnoxious, mouth-breathing cunts outside of a Conservative Party Conference.
But let's not look back in anger, for tonight, as at each stop on this tour, all worldly concerns, past present and future, are set aside for an utterly joyous celebration of life in all it's messy glory. And to quote Liam Gallagher's introduction to Some Might Say, song number four on an obscenely brilliant set-list, it's "fucking magic".
The idea of staying humble has always meant fuck all to Oasis. This is the band who introduced themselves to the world singing “Look at you now, you’re all in my hands tonight” on Rock 'n' Roll Star, track one, side one of Definitely Maybe, “the most arrogant song ever” in Liam's words.
Imagine, at 21-years-old, living with your mum, fronting a gang of older lads who look like they've stepped off a building site in their work clothes and delivering that line with utter, unerring conviction to audiences who could comfortably fit into a Ford Escort while third on the bill at JBs in Dudley, The Duchess Of York in Leeds, or Hull Adelphi. No fear, no irony, just Liam's unbreakable self-belief in his brother's gospel of unapologetic, boundless optimism.
Though few of tonight's 23 songs would conventionally be labelled 'punk' - a notable exception being the glorious Bring It On Down, hilariously introduced with the question "Do we have any glue sniffers in the house tonight?" - but there's a proudly independent 'fuck you' defiance embedded in even the most melodic, stadium-friendly songs. "You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway" on Half The World Away, "I need to be myself, I can't be no-one else" opening Supersonic, "Maybe I just don't believe" on Live Forever, a casually shrugged off refusal to stay in your lane, for anyone. That edge is still there, in their hearts, and in their souls. The Gallaghers might not live in Burnage anymore, but they know who they are, where they come from, and what matters, which is why they can still make these aspirational anthems fly.
"Any Mancunians in tonight?" Noel asks before Half The World Away, a question met with low-level, good-natured boos.
"Don't start with that booing shit," he scoffs. "If it wasn't for Manchester none of you would be here."
It'd be stupid to imagine that the 90,000 people here tonight hear the same things, and take the same meanings, from Oasis songs. And yet, for all their brash swagger, no band is more dedicated to, and more capable of, uniting a stadium as one, every face shining, every voice in harmony.
"It's good to be fucking back man," Liam says at one point. And it's good to have them fucking back man, because what Oasis can do, on magical, soul-swelling nights like this, is untouchable.
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