Will it be rowdier than the rugby? Cardiff gears up for Oasis reunion opening night

The Guardian

5 hours ago

Oasis songs are already blasting out from the Principality stadium during sound checks and rehearsals as Cardiff gears up for the opening night of the band's hugely anticipated reunion tour.
On Friday and Saturday the Welsh capital is hosting Liam and Noel Gallagher's first live shows together since 2009, when a long-running feud between the Manchester brothers culminated in a dramatic backstage fight and subsequent split.
Despite worries the pair might fall out again before the 41-date tour begins, preparations are well under way: people have gathered outside the stadium listening for hints of the setlist, and Noel himself arrived in Cardiff on Tuesday.
Oasis's famous black-and-white logo has popped up across Cardiff, and playlists in cafes and pubs are full of 1990s Britpop.
The queue for a pop-up merchandise shop stretched for hundreds of metres when it opened last week and on Wednesday it was still busy with fans browsing bucket hats, parkas, shot glasses, posters and vinyl.
At a 16ft-tall Wonder Wall portrait of the Gallaghers made of 3,000 black and white bucket hats by artist Nathan Wyburn at St David's shopping centre, Po Chang, 47, and Yi Chieh, 42, said they had come to Wales from Taiwan so they could be among the first to hear the band reunited.
Chang said: 'Making this trip is worth it, no question. I'm a musician and Oasis have been a very big influence on my life and my career.' The couple last saw the band perform in 2009, and they have tickets for one of the two Japan dates in October as well as Cardiff on Friday.
'We were worried they might not stay together until Tokyo, so we decided to take a road trip in Wales too so we will definitely get to see them,' he added.
Elinor Maizey and her two friends, all 18, also stopped to look at the mural. 'We weren't around for the Britpop era, obviously, but we know the songs,' she said.
'I'm actually a Blur fan. I'm in a longstanding argument with my music teacher over whether Blur or Oasis are better … He tried to get tickets for Oasis but the sellers went silent on him twice and he's gutted,' the Cardiff student said.
The build up to the tour's opening gig in Cardiff on Friday will be broadcast by the BBC before Oasis head to Manchester, their home town, for five nights.
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Every tour date from July to November worldwide is sold out. Tickets for all 17 gigs in the UK and Ireland were scooped up within 10 hours of going on sale, while tickets for the shows in North America and Brazil were gone within an hour, sending prices soaring and leading to criticism of the distributor Ticketmaster's use of 'dynamic pricing'.
The tour is expected to be one of the most lucrative ever. The Gallaghers are reportedly in line to earn £50m each – more than they made in the entire 1990s, at the height of their fame – and by some estimates the gigs will inject £940m into the UK economy.
'Oasis are an important band, maybe they are a bit past it now. We'll find out on Friday,' said Graham Coath, 53, a music podcaster from Somerset, who was in Cardiff to see Alanis Morissette, another 1990s alt-rock icon, play on Wednesday night.
'It would have been nice to see them bring some up-and-coming talent and local musicians with them on this tour, pay it forward a bit,' he added.
About 149,000 concert-goers are expected to visit Cardiff over the weekend. The city's hotels were already 90% full in June, up on 51% and 47% respectively over the same days in 2024, and WalesOnline reports some are now charging an average of £588 for last-minute accommodation during the concert dates.
At the City Arms, the closest pub to the Principality stadium, Morgan Philp, 23, a bartender, was expecting a busy weekend. 'I would be surprised if it gets more rowdy than a rugby weekend, but we'll manage. It'll be plastic cups only, we've got thousands. We're ready,' she said.