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As a 55-year-old Englishman, numerous individuals have requested me during the last yr or so if I’m excited concerning the Oasis reunion. And I’ll be sincere: probably not.
Yes I used to be a teenager within the Nineties, residing by the golden age of British music, however I fully missed the Oasis memo. While everybody was going mad for Wonderwall, I used to be shedding myself in sweaty warehouse raves until 6am.
To me, Britpop felt insular, nostalgic, backward-looking; everything the techno scene wasn’t. So when Liam swaggered onto the TV with that trademark sneer, I just shrugged and went back to my Prodigy records.
But now, 30 years later, with the reunion sending the UK into delirium, I found myself wondering what I’d missed. And the answer came in an unexpected place: a photography exhibition sprawled across Wembley Park featuring Kevin Cummins’ intimate portraits of the Gallagher brothers from 1994, just before they became the biggest band in Britain.
What the camera caught
Brothers: Liam and Noel Through the Lens of Kevin Cummins is not your typical rock images exhibition. These aren’t the standard posed photographs of leather-clad rock gods with guitars. Instead, Cummins – the genius behind these iconic Joy Division and Smiths pictures – has captured one thing way more fascinating: the precise human beings behind the mythology
The very first thing that strikes you is how younger they appear. Noel’s barely 27, Liam’s 21 and so they’re each clearly having the time of their lives. I glimpse a shot of them leaping onto the again of a London bus like overgrown youngsters – and immediately I get it. This is not calculated rock-star posturing; that is pure, unfiltered pleasure at their very own ridiculous luck.
That mentioned, it is the quieter moments that actually hit dwelling. There’s one picture the place they’re leaning into one another, and the physique language tells a very totally different story to the backstage bust-ups we might hear about later.
These are brothers who clearly love one another, regardless of their macho posturing; who perceive one another’s jokes, who’ve obtained one another’s backs in opposition to the world. Cummins caught them in that transient window earlier than fame turned poisonous, when being in Oasis was nonetheless the perfect factor that had ever occurred to them.
What’s outstanding about these pictures is how they seize lightning in a bottle; that exact second when Oasis had been about to blow up, however hadn’t but been consumed by its personal success. They’re nonetheless sporting tracksuits and classic jumpers; there’s nothing polished or media-trained about them. They’re simply two Manchester lads who’ve stumbled into one thing extraordinary.
The exhibition consists of photographs from their first studio session, candid lodge room moments and that well-known picture of them in Manchester City shirts with “Brother” emblazoned throughout their chests. Looking at these now, you understand that Cummins wasn’t simply documenting a band – he was creating their visible mythology, serving to them perceive who they had been changing into.
Understanding the phenomenon
Standing among these larger-than-life images scattered across Wembley Park, I finally understood what I’d dismissed so casually in the 90s. Oasis weren’t really about the music; they were about possibility. They represented this idea that ordinary people from ordinary places could become extraordinary, that you didn’t need connections or posh accents or art school credentials to matter.
The rave scene I loved was anonymous, collective, about losing yourself in the crowd. Oasis was the opposite: it was about individual personalities, about Liam’s attitude and Noel’s songs and their complicated, public relationship. It was theater, but theater performed by people who felt real.
Maybe that’s why the reunion has hit so hard. We’re not just getting the band back together – we’re getting the brothers back together, closing a circle that’s been broken for 15 years. These photographs remind us what we lost when the feuding started, what made Oasis special in the first place.
Brothers: Liam and Noel Through the Lens of Kevin Cummins runs till 30 September at Wembley Park. Entry is free. A guide, Oasis The Masterplan, that includes Cummins’ pictures, can also be on sale now.
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