Music photographer Jill Furmanovsky wasn’t surprised by the extraordinary response to the Oasis reunion tour.
The snapper has been photographing the Wonderwall band for the past three decades and believes that the Oasis Live ’25 Tour, which saw brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher end their feud to perform together for the first time in 16 years, has been so successful because the gigs are “about the audience”.
Jill, who first met Oasis at one the band’s early gigs at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in 1994, told NME: “It wasn’t a surprise for us, because Oasis have always been about the audience. Always. There was never much to shoot.
“Even at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, nothing much happened on stage – but behind, people were word-perfect and going wild.
“And that hasn’t changed throughout, really. They just get that songbook out and blast it. Liam is absolutely charismatic and mesmerising, doing as little as he does. It’s still enormously powerful. And that is the show.”
Furmanovsky – who has photographed acts such as Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin in a career spanning over 50 years – continued: “What they’ve managed to do with this (new) show, with the technology and the screens… it’s quite a phenomena.
“That demographic of different age groups, as well, is quite a wide range. I went with my 13-year-old granddaughter, and there were plenty of people her age who were word-perfect with the songs. It’s amazing.
“Biblical’ is the word they bandy about. ‘Biblical’ seems ridiculous, but actually, when you’ve had two warring brothers that have made up, there is something biblical just about that alone. That, combined with what they’re actually doing… it’s unique.”
Jill’s new book Trying To Find A Way Out Of Nowhere documents her time photographing Oasis and she believes that no modern acts are comparable to the Supersonic rockers – who she had the chance to take pictures of once again at one of their gigs at Wembley Stadium on the reunion tour.
She said: “There are very few artists as big as Oasis, that could actually fill their giant footsteps now.
“We’re in some other zone now, a hiatus of some kind. It’s the end of a rock ‘n’ roll era, which isn’t to say there isn’t the talent or creativity. We still get impressionist painters, but we’re not in the impressionist era.”