You and I Are Gonna Live Forever

I saw Oasis and I was absolutely mad fer it.

On Thursday, August 28th, in Chicago, Illinois, I attended Oasis’ first American concert in over seventeen years. My wife and I, and some 50,000 other lucky ticket-holders marched into Soldier Field on a crisp Lake Michigan evening to witness the Brothers Gallagher in action.

And our faces were subsequently melted.

Conservatively I would estimate I drank between 85 and 300 beers that evening; as a result certain portions of the show are as hazy as beers six through eleven. I urge the reader to take that into consideration, and preemptively excuse any lapses in logic, or narrative coherence as I attempt to share my experience. Also, please forgive any deviations into euphoria, and/or nostalgia, as the site of one the greatest bands of the 90’s reunited and firing on all fucking cylinders had me all up in my feels.

What follows, then, are the thoughts that occurred to me during the show as best I can recall them. I hastily jotted them down on my phone throughout the show, and now humbly submit them for your approval.

NOTE

My wife and I have been playing a game ever since we got to Chicago, a game I urge anyone seeing Oasis embrace as well. Whatever city you happen to be in on the tour, Oasis will be preceded by a pop-up store hawking a bevy of merch: Oasis bucket hats, Oasis Adidas jackets, Oasis t-shirts, and so on. Everyone, all over town, will be festooned in Oasis gear. It’s a full-scale invasion.

As you see a group of men walking down the street wearing aforementioned Oasis gear, pretend that you think they actually are the band Oasis. As if Oasis would just walk around wearing shit that says Oasis. The less they look like Oasis, the better. Make sure they see you seeing them, then proceed to calmly lose your shit, preferably in your brattiest Gallagherian brogue.

“Honey, my god! It’s them! It’s the lads! It’s the lads!”

The group will look around confused. Are you talking about us?

Then stare straight at the ground, as if you don’t want to be caught gawking at Liam and Noel.

“Oy, be kewl. Be kewl. Be kewl.”

Then work up the nerve to say, “‘ave a good show, mates!”

They’ll be like I’m sorry, do you think we’re the band Oasis? or something to that effect, but just cut them off.

“Fock me. I’m acting the proper knob, aren’t I? Apologies, geezers, it’s just your band: we’re absolutely mad fer it!”

Then run away.

Good, clean fun.

NOTE

No one rocks a raincoat they way Liam Gallagher rocks a raincoat. He wears raincoats when it’s not raining. I can’t think of a single time that I put on a raincoat before it started raining, but Liam wakes up, see it’s 80 degrees and sunny, and thinks, raincoat day, innit?

I hope he’s a co-op member at REI, because if he is, he can just exchange that raincoat for a new one up to one year after the purchase date. Like, regardless of the condition. He could just wear a raincoat, out on tour, night after night, getting it all kinds of fucked up, and then as long as he returns it 364 days later, boom! Brand new raincoat!

For free.

My wife and I are scamming that co-op deal right now for all our boys’ shoes. Kids need new shoes all the damn time, so we just get them at REI and exchange them for a bigger size a year later. Even if they’re all beat to shit! Our boys are six and four, and we’ve literally paid for one pair of shoes for each of them in their entire lives.

Hahahahahah. Suck it, REI!

Anyway, Liam, if you’re reading this and you do wind up joining the REI co-op, mention that it was me, Adam Cayton-Holland, who turned you on to it. They give out sweet coupons for referrals. Like 75% off. It’s insane.

NOTE

Fuck me. I’m crying. I didn’t see this one coming. Look, I’m an Oasis fan, to be sure, but I’m not a maniac. I don’t know the name of every song. I haven’t listened to several of the later albums. Definitely Maybe, What’s the Story (Morning Glory), Be Here Now, I’m well and proper familiar with the big three, sure, but I’m far from a fanatic.

I just knew this show would be great, this tour would be great, this reunion would be great. And I really wanted to see it. But now I’m standing here as summer turns to fall and Oasis is absolutely destroying and I’m crying. Like, actually crying.

And I don’t even care. Normally I’d button it up. Stiff upper lip and all that. And not in some toxic masculinity men don’t cry bullshit way. I’m just shy about my feelings. I don’t want people knowing my emotions. But I don’t care about any of that right now. I’m crying and it’s happy crying, but it’s also sad crying. For the part of me that’s gone, for the part of everyone here at this show that’s gone. I’m crying because we’re no longer young, because the teenagers who fell in love with these songs are all grownups now who take their kids to the dentist and pay mortgages.

There’s a real death there.

Call it aging. Call it middle-aging.

But like with any death, after the initial mourning, you put that hurt away inside of you. After some time, you don’t feel it as viscerally anymore. Almost out of survival. You have to do the best you can to move on. Then randomly something will hit you—a smell, a memory, a photo you haven’t seen in years—and suddenly the pain is as intense as the day you first lost that person. Because you remember the feel of them. It’s no longer abstract. It’s tangible. But that’s beautiful in a way. You’re actually tapping into the connection you once had, and it’s visceral. The scab comes off the wound. Then for this fleeting, heartbreaking moment, before it all comes crashing back down again, there’s no scab at all.

That’s what this feels like. My inner teenager was dead and gone. But Oasis is speaking to him directly. And I can feel him. And I miss him. And I love him.

And all of that’s okay.

Stand by Me.

That’s the song that done it.

Bleedin’ hell.

NOTE

No one at Oasis got the memo that you’re not supposed to wear the t-shirt of the band you’re seeing to the concert.

No one.

NOTE

An aside.

The new Project Runway fucking sucks.

I’ve always been a big fan of that show. Sure, it’s reality TV, and it’s all trash so what did I expect, but I like shows where you get to see talented people do their thing. That’s why I’ve always liked Top Chef. At the end of the day, despite whatever gimmicky bullshit challenge they’re doing, these are really talented chefs cooking. And that’s fun to see. Ditto Project Runway. These people make some killer clothes. I like watching them do that.

But Project Runway couldn’t leave good enough alone.

I was skeptical when they brought Heidi Klum back but not Tim Gunn. Like, I’m sorry, what? Tim Gunn is a national treasure. I could listen to Tim Gunn talk about taxes and I would feel calm, and inspired; I would feel assured. Yes, they have Christian Siriano now in that mentor role, and he’s great in his own catty way, but why not have both?! Tim and Christian good cop bad copping the designers would be TV gold! You can afford it, Bravo! This is your top show, right?

Nope. The staid, steady hand of a professional like Tim Gunn is nowhere near the wheel of this pithy slock-show. Instead they sprinted in the other direction. The Real Housewives direction. The editing is frenetic, bitchier somehow, pithy quips abound. Everything seems produced for maximum drama. In one episode they had the designers pick their fellow designers going home that day! I mean that’s just low-rent.

I get that Bravo’s entire ethos as a network is put some pigs in the mud then film them hogging about. But Project Runway was the one exception. It was the rare waft of class in the Bravo City municipal dump. Gone are those days. And we deserve better.

Nina Garcia deserves better!

I’ll still watch though.

NOTE

It’s so wild to me that someone would write these killer songs and then just hand them off to his little brother. I mean clearly it was the right move. But the lack of ego that takes, mon dieu! To write anthems, then just hop into the Number Two spot while you play them is staggering. May we all be so selfless. May we all exercise our inner Noel Gallagher.

WWNGD.

NOTE

I’m realizing a big part of why I love this band so much is because it’s the perfect Venn Diagram of rock and roll and soccer. And not just any soccer. 1990’s soccer. The stuff I grew up on, absolutely classic kit. The Adidas track suits. The bulky Umbro jerseys. I wore all that stuff. Ordered it out of Eurosport and played in it until it had holes. Then bought more. The era of Oasis global dominance was the period of my life when I played soccer the most. For my high school team, my club team, indoor, pickup in the summers. Oasis was the soundtrack of all that.

At one point on the screen there was a soccer ball in the background of a picture and I realized I had that ball!

The Questra!

Official ball of the 1994 World Cup!

Oasis AV Team crushing it! Nostalgia going into overdrive!

NOTE

It’s oddly reassuring to know that Liam Gallagher is still a cunt. Seeing him up there, scowling and preening, shaking his tambourine and maracas with literal violence, like he’d rather be hitting you with them, it feels perfect, and it’s just so great to see again. Liam Gallagher has to be one of the biggest pricks in the history of rock music, and we wouldn’t want him any other way. That’s the Liam we know and love. And that’s the Liam he still is.

Sure he’s older, now seemingly wiser, not partying as hard, reportedly, the pipes sound great. And you can tell he’s up there loving all of this. Anytime he talks to the audience, it’s all love, and it’s all really sweet, and funny; but he still positively seethes every word. He can’t help it. His default disposition is that of a middle finger. A friend told me he read an interview in which Noel Gallagher described his little brother as being born with a fork in a world full of soup. Put upon, transgressed against, this is the way that Liam perceives the world. And it just feels right to see him adopting that stance again. Like finally, something you can set your damn watch too.

If Liam were to come out and say some heartfelt words about time healing all wounds, about learning that life is too short to hold a grudge, we would have all nodded, and teared up; we would have valued the wisdom that Liam shared. But it wouldn’t have been what we actually wanted. We want Liam’s resentment, his hostility. We want him to literally stand still as a statue for an entire song, jaw clenched, menacing. It’s so comforting to see again. In a world where everything seems terrifying, in a country gone to total shite, the fact that Liam Gallagher still takes to the stage and bristles feels like a comforter pulled up to our collective chin.

In a world gone astray, let Liam Gallagher’s enduring petulance be your north star.

END NOTES

That was all I wrote in my phone.

The concert ended—the encore was We Don’t Look Back in Anger, Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, I mean come on—and my wife and I marched out of Soldier Field, back across Millennium Park towards our hotel.

Dudes were slinging beers out of coolers, so we each grabbed a Miller Life and slammed them as we walked, and I felt overcome with love. I remember thinking how much I loved my wife, this woman who diligently waited on her phone and snagged these tickets eight months ago in the lottery. I love that she’s as unabashedly nostalgic for the 90’s as I am.

I remember thinking how much I loved my sons. They were asleep back in the hotel room, the daughter of a friend babysat while we went to the show. Which was never the plan. This was to be a rare getaway for my wife and I, just the two of us to Chicago for the concert. But our childcare situation changed, and our Oasis sojourn suddenly and expensively morphed into a 48-hour family vacation. It changed the entire tenor of the trip, naturally. We had to bail on the fancy dinner reservation we made, we didn’t get to any cool museums. We went to a playground, and played mini golf. We ate hot dogs and pizza. We existed for the boys, as we do most every day, this time just in a different city.

And you know what? I loved that too. Because that’s my life now. It’s not the 90’s anymore. We’re not the kids. We’re the grownups. And that has made life way more complex, but also so incredibly beautiful. And I love it as much as anything I’ve ever loved.

Maybe more.

Maybe I was just drunk.

Who’s to say.

Still, for a few stolen hours one late summer Chicago night, grownup or no, it was nice to feel like a teenager again.

---

September Shows

Speaking of Chicago, thanks so much to everyone who came out to my show at the Lincoln Lodge. I sincerely appreciate it! That was a blast.

It’s going to be a September to remember in Denver, y’all! Because the High Plains Comedy Festival returns! Hold on to your butts.

This fest is my baby, and it is barreling down the pipe. Get your festival pass now, before they’re gone!

September 18-20 - Denver, High Plains Comedy Festival - Tix

Then the following week I’m shooting across the prairie for the Omaha Comedy Festival! Omahanians, mount up!

September 26-28 - Omaha, NE - Omaha Comedy Fest - Tix

Shows in Burlington, VT, Houston and St. Louis coming down the pipe in the next few months. As always, all shows listed over at adamcaytonholland.com

---

The Monthly Clip

God damn, Adam. Great clip. Way to go.

---

Before you go, give the ole socials a follow

Hey thanks so much for reading this Substack! You rule! If you want to share it, that would also rule. If you want to pay to read it, that would rule too. Those Oasis tickets were not cheap. My god.