They have waited almost 16 years for this moment, and they can’t believe it’s about to happen.
Dressed in bucket hats, Adidas tracksuits and other ’90s looks, a crowd began gathering on Friday afternoon at the 75,000-capacity Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, to witness one of the unlikeliest reunions in rock music.
At least for two hours.
Around 8:15 p.m. here (3:15 p.m. Eastern), Noel and Liam Gallagher, the stars of the band whose anthemic hits include “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” are scheduled to swagger onstage, putting aside over a decade of brotherly war.
The show will kick-start a 41-date sold-out world tour that includes two dates this summer at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
If the brothers don’t fall out first.
The band formed in Manchester, England, in 1991, and the Gallagher brothers bickered from the start — like many siblings do. But these two were in the pressure-cooker environment of one of the world’s most famous rock bands.
Their fights are well documented. Liam once threw a tambourine at Noel, and Noel hit Liam in the head with a cricket bat. In 1995, a 14-minute recording of the brothers swearing at each other during an interview reached No. 52 on the British charts. In that exchange, Noel said the pair argued “hourly,” although Liam said that tension was “why we’ll be the best band in the world.”
The fraternal drama added some extra spice as Oasis became one of the most popular rock acts of the 1990s. And in Britain, it was a generational phenomenon, akin to the Beatles in the ’60s or the Sex Pistols in the ’70s. Since its 1994 debut single, “Supersonic,” critics saw the group as one of the bands defining the sound of Britpop.