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For Gen Z, the Oasis reunion tour is creating a rare emotional bond with older generations

How the Gallagher brothers became an unlikely symbol of hope and joy.

Courtesy Big Brother Recordings

Oasis brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher wrap the U.S. leg of their reunion tour with two concerts at the Rose Bowl.

Something happened while Oasis was broken up. In the 16 years since the British rock icons famously imploded during a backstage fight in Paris, their fanbase quietly grew — or, in this case, grew up. At the Oasis Live ‘25 reunion tour, which has sold out stadiums in both the United Kingdom and North America, the crowd has been a surprising mix of equally enthusiastic older and younger fans.

Jack Dione, 24, was eight years old when Oasis broke up in 2009. “I was just a little kid, but I listened to them all the time,” he told Upworthy. “I was not going to miss seeing them when they came to the Rose Bowl, to L.A.”

“They’re like our Beatles,” added a teary-eyed Emma Mackenzie, who was 13 when the Gallagher brothers called it quits. “For us, this is like the Beatles getting back together.”

Oasis, fans, Gen Z, Millennial, Rose Bowl, Los Angeles, Pasadena Best friends Emma Mackenzie and Alena Brophy share an emotional moment during Oasis concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA.Photo by Denise Quan

Ironically, Noel Gallagher was soundly lambasted for daring to proclaim that his band was “bigger than the Beatles” in 1996, following the worldwide success of Oasis’ first two albums, Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory. Nearly three decades later, their Manchester-bred brashness and unapologetic swagger is still polarizing.

“Liam thinks he’s a gift from God. They are cocky sons of bitches, and I love that about them,” says Tim Plumley, a music industry executive who has not worked with Oasis, but has worked with members of the Beatles — who were also known for complicated interpersonal dynamics.

When tickets for Oasis Live ‘25 went on sale last year, Las Vegas oddsmakers gave the Gallagher brothers a 4/1 chance of making it through the end of their scheduled dates. Fans were more than willing to take the gamble. The North American leg of their tour reportedly sold out in less than one hour.

Oasismania exploded on social media and spilled onto the streets, with branded bucket hats, T-shirts and soccer jerseys spotted with increasing frequency on people from 17 to 70. Oasis pop-up shops appeared overnight in select cities. The Hollywood location alone drew 600 customers per day, according to a security guard. Among the merch offerings: Oasis baby onesies, replicas of Liam’s signature parka, and a retro Adidas tracksuit that hits a sweet spot between “then” and “now,” just like the band has managed to do. Liam was even spotted on an L.A. hiking trail wearing shorts and posing with fans — one of whom was clad, of course, in Oasis gear.

When all is said and done, the Live ‘25 tour is expected to bring in upwards of $1 billion in revenue at the completion of its 41 dates — more, if the reunion is extended.

“In terms of marketing, it was a blow-out,” says Plumley. “There’s a whole generation that never got to see them, and they’ve achieved this mythical-like status, so it’s a much bigger audience than they could ever play previously.”

Todd Nakamine, a fan since the ‘90s, traveled to London to see a pair of reunion shows (one on his birthday) before seeing them two more times in his L.A. hometown. He believes Oasis was the right band, at the right moment, to engineer a comeback for guitar-driven music. “Everybody’s been saying rock and roll has kind of died, and we need a rock and roll band, and we need rock stars. And they are rock stars,” he told Upworthy. “For our age, it’s very nostalgic.”

Melissa Dragich was one of the band’s publicists at Epic Records from 1996-2002. She attended one of the L.A. shows at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena with her 19-year-old son, Jack Cordero. Conditions couldn’t have been more perfect. The stage was illuminated by a brilliant full moon, and the night was balmy. At least a dozen friends were dotted around the stadium. “It brings us back to that happy time, when we were all in our 20s and just starting our lives,” Dragich says. “I played Oasis for my kids because I worked with them, but they’re also a band I really enjoy. And once my son knew he was going, he immersed himself in the albums, and he fell in love with them.”

“I think it was the best concert I’ve been to,” says Cordero. “Even better than Green Day.”

Oasis, family, tour, Rose Bowl, Los Angeles, son, daughter 'Oasis Live '25' is a family affair for Jack Cordero, Melissa Dragich, Jamie Jones and Joie Jones.Courtesy Melissa Dragich

One young girl named Sam sobbed her way through the show in the front row. Noel dedicated “Don’t Look Back in Anger” to her, which made her sob even more.

A number of celebrities attended the concerts in L.A., including Leonardo DiCaprio, Kristen Stewart, Sofia Vergara, Noah Cyrus, Mark Zuckerberg and Paul McCartney — the latter caught shooting video on his phone in the audience, and responding “Fabulous!” when paparazzi asked him about the show as he left the venue.

122K views · 5.7K reactions | Paul McCartney filming Oasis. The biggest bands you can think of are Oasis fans. 🇺🇸#oasis #liamgallagher #noelgallagher #oasislive25 #oasislive | Realty Rocker www.facebook.com

It’s been a cruel summer in Los Angeles, with the city on edge due to ICE raids, protests, and the rising cost of life in an urban area. The Rose Bowl itself lies a scant mile from the Altadena neighborhood where 7,500 structures burned to the ground and 19 people lost their lives in January’s Eaton fire.

But for two glorious nights at the Rose Bowl, people put aside their worries and their differences, and joined in a multi-generational sing-along led by two brothers who finally learned how to get along — and, as a bonus, were endorsed by a Beatle.

Yes, it was about nostalgia.

“Oasis brings us back to how we felt in the ‘90s, which was so different from how the world is now,” says Dragich.

For Cordero, it was also about the joy of community and shared experience, even if — or especially if — you’re a teenager who attended the Oasis concert with your mom.

“It’s probably best summed up by one of the songs they performed called ‘Some Might Say,’” he concludes. “We need to listen to the lyrics: ‘Some might say we will find a brighter day.’”

Oasis just might be the reunion we never knew we needed — but we’re sure glad it happened.

Even Liam Gallagher seemed moved, telling the crowd in his own irascible way, "I wanna thank you, man...for sticking with us over the years. We must be be a f****** nightmare to support and follow, and we appreciate it, gettin' to play these beautiful stadiums in front of all you beautiful people. Champagne Supernova. Look after yourselves. Take care."

And with that, they were on their way to their next destination, Mexico City, for their final tour stop. Or is it? Maybe they, like us, don't want the feeling to end.

Oasis, concert, tour, generations, Los Angeles, Rose Bowl, fireworks Oasis caps a triumphant U.S. reunion tour with fireworks at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CACourtesy Big Brother Recordings

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Who is the 'patron saint' of Gen X? The debate is illuminating and downright hilarious.

You can't ask a Gen X-er a question like this and expect a serious answer.

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Winona Ryder smokes a cigarette

Every generation has its ultimate hero. Or does it? Perhaps for the Silent Generation, it's Jimmy Stewart. The Boomers? Clint Eastwood. Or any of the Easy Rider gang, like, say, Jack Nicholson. But in a recent post on Threads, someone posed the divisive question to Gen X-ers and many of them weren't having it.

The statement/question read: "If Hannah from Girls is the patron saint of millennials (which she is, don't argue), who does Gen X have? Is it Kurt Cobain?"

Lena Dunham, Girls, HBO, millennial Lena Dunham as Hannah GIF by Girls Giphy HBO

For anyone confused by this question, Hannah from Girls is a character created and portrayed by Lena Dunham, who is having a comeback moment with her new show Too Much.

There are nearly 700 responses in less than a week. But before we get into the X-ers’ candid thoughts, a few millennials were outraged by the "saint" applied to them. One writes in typical millennial fashion, "Life is hard enough. Please don't do this to us millennials. We've survived too much for that." Another: "Hannah from Girls? What in the Veronica Mars are you on about?" Another wisely pushes back: "Surely the patron saint of millennials is Taylor Swift?"

Now let's move on to those who attempt to answer the question. "I'm too old to know what this means, but the answer is Janeane Garofalo."

janeane garofalo, reality bites, gen x, generation x, humor A scene from the film Reality Bites. Giphy Universal Pictures

Many merely posted photos or memes of their response, including Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Madonna, and of course, the MTV cartoon Daria.

But the thing that stands out most about my beloved X generation is that most of us are simply not going to take this question seriously. Here are a few: "I claim McGruff the Crime Dog as my patron saint. Let's take a bite out of crime."

Another dives into the Spielberg catalogue: "Now that I think about it: the patron saint of Gen X is…Elliott from ET. Not the actor, but the character. If you're peak Gen X, then you were a little kid when that movie was released and Elliott was f-ing GOD." (A hilarious response to that was: "I'm Gen X and do not care for that movie. If you swap Elliott with Carol Anne from Poltergeist, now we're talking.")

poltergeist, gen x, generation x, spielberg, movies Carol Anne gets in touch with ghosts in the movie Poltergeist. Giphy Tobe Hooper GIF

One person got very serious: "Gen X has no patron saint. We had no one but ourselves and our friends who also had nobody, and that's why we are the way we are. Stop trying to fit us into your worldview and leave us alone like our parents did. We're fine being invisible."

That got real fast, and it was also quite the popular answer. One Threader responded, "One half of my brain fully supports this answer. The other half is doing 8,876 other things so it can't fully get on board with anything."

Another adds, in part: "If I were a millennial, I'd be infuriated by this post. Anyway, Gen X doesn't have a patron saint. We were all into different things, depending on who we were. Some preferred Trent Reznor. Some preferred Kurt Cobain. Some preferred Robert Smith. Gen X wasn't a monolith, and many of us hated the things others loved while others loved the things we hated."

Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, Gen X, Generation X, musician Kurt Cobain, the patron saint of Gen X. Giphy

And lastly (finally), the correct answer is shared: "Whatever, never mind." So very Gen X.


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Woman gives stray cat the most Gen X name ever, and her friend can't stand it

As if?

via Canva/Photos

A woman making a "loser" sign and a shocked cat.

There are no hard-set rules for naming a cat, but if you want to follow the current trends, give them a cute-sounding human name. Over the past two years, the top five most popular cat names have been Luna, followed by Charlie, Lucy, Bella, and Leo.

No matter what type of name it is, it can also be hard to settle on one for a new cat because it’s what you’ll be calling out for the next 12-plus years. What if you name the cat Jerry, but it acts like a Sebastian or a Michael? Then what will you do? Two friends got into a spat over naming a cat, with the new owner rejecting their friend’s suggestions in favor of a term popular among Gen Xers in the ‘80s and ‘90s.


“I found a little stray cat in front of the grocery store. Super friendly but skinny and obviously abandoned,” A Redditor with the username SpecialEggSalad wrote. “My friend was with me and kept throwing out names. I didn’t like any of them. It was Ross, Beck, Tucker, Zorro… I asked her to just chill. She was getting worked up and kept asking if she could have the kitten. [It’s] My kitty. Anyway, after 20 minutes of her, just suggesting endless amounts of names…She got mad and said, ‘Fine, call him whatever you want.’ So now the cat's name is WHATEVER.”


When SpecialEggSlad announced the cat’s name, her friend “turned red in the face and she was about to cry.” It could be that the friend hated the feeling of rejection, but if she grew up in the ‘80s or ‘90s, she’d understand that being on the receiving end of a “whatever” was quite the insult.

What did 'whatever' mean to Gen X?

You see, Gen Xers were known for having an aloof attitude because, in those days, caring too much about anything was totally uncool. So whatever was more than a catchphrase was a way of life. The term became popular in the early ‘80s when Valley Girl speak expanded from Los Angeles to the world. But what began as innocuous slang evolved into something more nihilistic. In Nirvana’s breakout 1991 anthem, Smells Like Teen Spirit, where Kurt Cobain ditches any attempt at making a point in the song by singing, “Oh well, whatever, never mind.” Whatever was a way of distancing yourself from the powers-that-be, whether it was political, religious, corporate, or the media.


The term was also part of ‘90s hand-gesture culture, where people would call someone a loser by making an L with their index and middle fingers and placing it on their forehead. In Clueless, the affluent teens used two hands to merge the double Ls into a W, to signal “whatever,” with a double loser casher. Business Insider’s Emily Stewart notes that Gen X’s attitude comes from being raised as the least parented generation in recent memory. “Gen X's ‘whatever’ attitude has translated to a society that's perpetually a little ‘whatever’ about them,” she wrote.


It may be a knock on Gen Xers that they were once so nihilistic that they rallied around the term whatever, but it’s also a sign of knowing what’s important. A lot is going on in the world, and we only have so many Fs to give; it’s best to hand them out to the people who deserve them. Because when you care about everything, it’s hard to truly care about anything.

In the Reddit post, SpecialEggSlad faced criticism from commenters for naming her cat Whatever, which made it look like she didn’t care about the animal. Realizing this, she changed the cat’s name to Peekaboo. Let’s just hope the kitty grows into its name and isn’t a cat that refuses to hide, even if given an incredibly cozy cardboard box.

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Gen X is trying to come to grips with getting 'old.' It's not going so well.

We are NOT prepared for Salt-n-Pepa to be played in the doctor's office waiting room, thankyouverymuch.

The Holderness Family/Facebook

Gen X is eating dinner earlier and earlier.

The thing about Gen X being in our 40s and 50s now is that we were never supposed to get "old." Like, we're the cool, aloof grunge generation of young tech geniuses. Most of the giants that everyone uses every day—Google, Amazon, YouTube—came from Gen X. Our generation is both "Friends" and "The Office." We are, like, relevant, dammit.

And also, our backs hurt, we need reading glasses, our kids are in college and how in the name of Jennifer Aniston's skincare regimen did we get here?

gen x, getting older, jennifer aniston, friends, midlife We're not ready. Giphy

It's weird to reach the stage when there's no doubt that you aren't young anymore. Not that Gen X is old—50 is the new 30, you know—but we're definitely not young. And it seems like every day there's something new that comes along to shove that fact right in our faces. When did hair start growing out of that spot? Why do I suddenly hate driving at night? Why is this restaurant so loud? Does that skin on my arm look…crepey?

As they so often do, Penn and Kim Holderness from The Holderness Family have captured the Gen X existential crisis in a video that has us both nodding a long and laughing out loud. Salt-n-Pepa in the waiting room at the doctor's office? Uh, no. That's a line we are not ready to cross yet. Nirvana being played on the Classic Rock station? Nope, not prepared for that, either.

Watch:

Hoo boy, the denial is real, isn't it? We grew up on "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, for goodness sake, and it's starting to feel like we made a wrong choice a chapter or two back and suddenly landed our entire generation in a time warp. This isn't real, is it? Thirty years ago was the 1970s. That's just a Gen X fact. So what if we've lived long enough for our high school fashions to go out of style and then back into style and then back out of style again?

Seriously, though, we can either lament our age and stage in life or we can laugh about it, and people are grateful to the Holdernesses for assisting with the latter. Gen X fans are also thrilled to see their own experiences being validated, because at this point, we've all had that moment in the grocery store or the waiting room when one of our jams came on and we immediately went into a panic.

gen x, midlife, getting older, grocery store music, middle age It's a dark day at the grocery store when the music of your youth comes on. Photo credit: Canva

Fellow Gen Xers commiserate in the comments:

"They were playing The Cure in the grocery store and I almost started crying. I mean, how 'alternative' can you be if you're being played in Krogers? You guys are great! Thanks for making us laugh."

"When I turn on the classic rock station I expect the Doors or CCR not Soundgarden or Nirvana."

"I couldn’t believe it when I heard Bohemian Rhapsody being played in Walmart. That was edgy in my day."

"I know!!! Bon Jovi at the grocery store!!! That was my clue in!!"

gen x music, bon jovi, middle age, midlife crisis, getting older Bon Jovi isn't supposed to be "classic rock." Giphy

"That horrifying feeling when I realized that when I play Nevermind for my kids now in 2024, I’m playing them 33-year-old music, but when my dad played the Let It Be for me in 1984, it was only 14-year-old music."

"The first time I heard my jams on the oldies station I cried. I'm not old! I just have to take a picture of something to blow it up so I can see it better with my readers but everyone does that. Early dinners? Hey I'm hungry by 5 why wait."

"Long live Gen Xers! We have to be strong!! We can get through this together!! #NKOTBmeetsAARP"

Hang in there, Gen X. We didn't build up all that resilience and attitude in our youth just to fall apart at this point. Let's own this stage like we invented it and make it as cool as we are.

You can find more from the Holderness Family on their Facebook page, their podcast and their website, theholdernessfamily.com.

This article originally appeared last year.

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