Credit: Far Out / Alamy
October 21st, 2026 · 6:47am BST
Following their reunion, Oasis are now the veterans perched at the top of British rock, but they were once the new kids on the block who were getting a hard time from legends.
The show is now firmly on the other foot, with Liam Gallagher using his social media to shout down at Fontaines DC, who he said are “not good enough” to support Oasis and “don’t have any tunes”. This is a longstanding tradition, and when his band were graduating to stadiums like Fontaines DC now are, Oasis were far from welcomed with open arms from the ruling class of their day.
By 1997, Oasis had already stormed three nights at Knebworth the previous year, won the Britpop war, and without a shadow of a doubt, were the biggest band in Britain.
Rather than being welcomed with open arms, the gatekeepers of British rock ‘n’ roll shouted them down rather than being given a leg-up. The Gallagher brothers found themselves chastised by elder statesmen who reacted tempestuously to the acidic tongues of the Mancunians, including Mick Jagger.
The band’s ultimate heroes, The Beatles, also partook in insulting the group. George Harrison once savagely quipped: “The music lacks depth, and the singer Liam is a pain, the rest of the band don’t need him”. Meanwhile, Paul McCartney told the New Statesman in 1997: “They’re derivative and they think too much of themselves. They mean nothing to me.”
Credit: Far Out / Alamy
Admittedly, Noel Gallagher did ruffle their feathers by claiming Oasis were “bigger” than The Beatles, acknowledging in 2021 that he was “high” when he made the comment that he now finds “embarrassing“.
Jagger first aired his criticism of Oasis in 1997, when they were flying high following the release of Be Here Now. While it later became maligned, not least by the band, with even Noel later saying, “I hate that album,” that wasn’t the case at the time of release.
It was met with glowing reviews, topped the charts in 15 countries around the world, and became the quickest-selling album in British history. However, Jagger wasn’t having it, stating, “You can’t dance to it, the new album’s impossible”.
Jagger’s complaint about Oasis was largely due to his firmly-held belief that rock ‘n’ roll has to be packaged in a certain way, which Liam Gallagher fundamentally views differently. In Jagger’s mind, a singer in a band has to be the life and soul of a party, who should be buzzing with energy throughout the concert, an objective the Oasis frontman failed to fulfil.
Then, in an interview with Absolute Radio in 2010, Jagger praised the success of Kings of Leon and put this down to their killer arena show, which he believed was the biggest downfall of Oasis. “Well, that’s what they do, they don’t move – that doesn’t mean to say they don’t connect – they do connect sometimes, sometimes they’re not always good ways,” he explained.
Jagger continued: “What was that famous story when they were in New York, and they didn’t think the New York audience was loud enough, and they said something like ‘You’re rubbish’ or something, ‘New York, you’re a load of crap’ or something like that – which is not what you do anywhere really, especially in New York.”
One person grateful that he never bought into Jagger’s definition of a frontman is Gallagher himself, especially now that he’s in his 50s. In the new documentary, Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger, he points out, “You’re going to be doing this till you’re 60, you don’t want to do all that Mick Jagger shit.”
While most frontmen have to bring the energy to ensure everyone in the building has the night of their lives, Liam somehow can send 80,000 people into ecstasy while standing still and balancing a tambourine on his head. However, he is a rare exception to the rule, and if Jagger tried this at a Stones show, thousands would be asking for a refund.
