Missed out on Oasis at Wembley? This under-appreciated live album is the next best thing

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (‘n’ roll star) or have recently been caught beneath a landslide (in a Champagne Supernova or otherwise), you’ll know that Oasis are back.

Sixteen years after they dramatically split up midway through a European tour, the Gallagher brothers have finally shared a stage again: first in Cardiff, then in Manchester, and now they have headed to Wembley for five sold-out nights, from last Friday to next Sunday.

But if you don’t have a ticket, we’ve got the perfect way to feel like you’re there without having to leave your sofa...

Almost exactly 25 years ago, the band did almost exactly the same thing, playing back-to-back shows under the twin towers of the old Wembley stadium in July 2000, with the first night recorded and released as Familiar to Millions.

Oasis had released Standing on the Shoulder of Giants just six months earlier, but much like the recent shows the majority of the setlist was made up of pre-Be Here Now material; 11 of the tracks the band have been playing on their current tour also appear on Familiar to Millions.

They even use the same walk-out music – an instrumental called F**kin’ in the Bushes that features a sample of somebody berating attendees of the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival – with Liam following suit as he greets the 70,000-strong crowd.

“S**thole,” he snarls by way of an introduction, before stating it was “about time they knocked the f**kin’ s**t down,” referring to the fact that the 80-year-old stadium was due to be closed for demolition just a few months later.

• See Oasis' Familiar to Millions on Amazon Prime Video, Audio CD and DVD

Rock 'n' Roll Stars

To be honest, the actual set gets off to a slightly shaky start. Recent single Go Let It Out works well enough as an opener, if nowhere near as hedonistically as Hello on the latest tour, but following it with the entirely forgettable plod of Who Feels Love? threatens to kill off any momentum completely.

Fortunately, a run of four vintage bangers – Supersonic, Shakermaker, a full-throttle Acquiesce that brilliantly juxtaposes the Gallagher brothers’ voices, and Don’t Look Back in Anger b-side Step Out – gets things firmly back on track.

Never one to keep his opinions to himself, Liam seems to agree, saying: “You should write more of these songs, Noel,” as Alan White’s drums kick off Supersonic.

That’s another thing about this performance. Four members of the main line-up, Liam, Noel, Gem Archer, and Andy Bell, are the same as the 2025 incarnation of Oasis, which now includes original member Bonehead back on guitar, and Joey Waronker, who played drums on Liam’s collaborative album with John Squire from the Stone Roses, behind the kit.

If you’re aiming to recreate the gig experience as closely as possible, it’s at this point in the set that you should go to the loo and get another pint (for extra realism you can take about 20 minutes and leave £8 in your fridge for the beer), because after Gas Panic! it is pretty much non-stop hits until the end.

Force of Nature

One particularly sniffy review at the time slated the album for the Wembley faithful sounding like a football crowd, and the way they roar when Liam successfully appeals for one of the women in the crowd to “get ‘em out for the lads” epitomises everything that has historically been unpleasant about Oasis crowds. But from a sonic perspective, the audience’s position in the mix on Familiar to Millions is absolutely spot-on.

Mass sing-alongs are very much part of the Oasis live experience, and compared to Live at Knebworth, which manages to make 125,000 people sound like a mildly raucous tea party, the scale of the gig really comes across here.

It makes listening to Familiar to Millions that bit more immersive, especially if you listen through a pair of the best speakers, with the crowd’s contribution to Don’t Look Back In Anger particularly goosebump-worthy.

(On the night, they were even more important, as Liam gave up singing Wonderwall halfway through and let the audience finish it off for him. On the album they’ve taken most of his vocals from an entirely different show in Japan and overdubbed them, mainly because he was so drunk on the second night at Wembley that his performance would’ve been unusable.

You can see the actual performance from the Friday on the DVD version, which is available to stream on Amazon and Apple TV, albeit without its original 5.0 Dolby soundtrack.)

There are other less-than-perfect moments that did make it onto the recording. Cigarettes and Alcohol sounds ferocious until it ill-advisedly transforms into an organ-heavy version of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love, and the decision to tack on a cover of The Beatles’ Helter Skelter at the end, which was actually recorded in America three months earlier, makes no sense at all.

Fortunately, you can hit stop after they tear through Rock ‘n’ Roll Star and act like it never happened. Because it didn’t.

This isn’t the best live album ever made, and other shows would be mentioned before it when listing the band's greatest-ever performances, but it wouldn't be Oasis without a few imperfections, would it?

If it’s Wembley-worthy, wall-of-sound anthems you’re after, and you don’t have £500-odd to give to the professional touts that run most ticket resale websites, dig out your best bucket hat, stick on Familiar to Millions and crank the volume up.

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See Oasis' Familiar to Millions on Amazon Prime Video, Audio CD and DVD

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