The British music scene could be on the verge of a return to the Britpop battles of the 1990s after rumours emerged that Oasis could be planning to reform.
According to reports in the Mirror, Noel and Liam Gallagher have reached a “gentleman’s agreement” about reuniting after the band’s acrimonious split in 2009 when Noel walked out following a series of public spats. However, Noel’s publicist has strongly denied there is to be a reunion.
The rumoured revival of the band, which formed in Manchester in 1991, comes after the brothers appeared to have held peace talks following years of bitter feuding, with Liam recently posting a picture of himself online with a pass to one of Noel’s solo gigs captioned: “Keeping it in the family.”
According to the Mirror, the pair – who have had separate music careers with varying degrees of success since the demise of Oasis – are now considering staging a comeback.
The paper reported a source close to the Mancunian brothers saying: “It’s early days in terms of the details, but Noel and Liam, 42, are back on good terms and ready to give things another go. Nothing is signed but it’s what you might call a gentlemen’s agreement between them.
“Ultimately they’re family and whatever has gone on before can be sorted out – they’re very close beneath all the bluster.”
Oasis’s bitter 90s rivals Blur are due to release their first album since 2003, The Magic Whip, this month.
The unsubstantiated reports of Oasis’s reunion emerge just months after Noel Gallager, widely seen as the more successful of the pair in his solo career with his band High Flying Birds, told Q magazine in January that if the band did reform it would “only be for the money”.
However just a few days ago indie legends Paul Weller and Johnny Marr, the former Smiths guitarist, poured cold water on any talk of an Oasis rebirth, when they told the NME that Noel, 47, doesn’t need to reform the band as his solo work since the split is so strong.
Weller, a longtime friend of the musician, told the magazine: “I couldn’t give a f**k if Oasis got back together again because I like what he does now.”
“He gets better and better I think. His new album is wicked,” the former Jam frontman added.
The source told the Mirror: “Noel’s solo career has been a huge success with No 1 records and sold-out arena tours but Liam hasn’t been able to match that with Beady Eye. He is ready to try and put their differences behind them in order to get back on stage together with the band now that Beady Eye have split up.
“Obviously it would be massively lucrative for them both too, and the demand for tickets would be enormous.”
