Oasis fans have been branded rowdy, middle-aged and fat. At least they're not boring
Oasis fans are drunk, middle-aged and fat, according to secret documents written by Edinburgh council ahead of the band's three sold-out reunion concerts at Murrayfield Stadium in August. 'Medium to high intoxication' is to be expected among the 'rowdy' fans, the documents warn, while the large proportion of 'middle-aged men' in the audience will 'take up more room' than average.
The comments, obtained by a newspaper under Freedom of Information laws, drew the ire of Liam Gallagher. 'Quite frankly your attitude f—ing stinks,' the Oasis frontman told the council on X. 'I'd leave town that day if I was any of you lot.'
I haven't always agreed with Liam. This is, after all, the man who said that he might be God, and once described SpongeBob SquarePants as 'mad for it'. But in this instance the 52-year-old is correct. Edinburgh council's attitude stinks because rowdy fans are precisely what the first Oasis concerts in 16 years need. More than that, they are what live music needs. Not only are unruly audiences the most fun to be part of, but they provide a vivid counterbalance to the sea of tranquillity – people holding their phones aloft, heads gently bobbing – that mars most concerts these days.
The first thing to say is that Edinburgh council are simply doing what all councils do. Speaking to a concert insider this morning, such due diligence on a large crowd is 'absolutely normal'. Venues, councils and other bodies get together to form a Safety Action Group, which identifies potential issues in written reports. Audiences are ranked on their likely levels of drinking, rowdiness, age and so on. 'The issue here is that Edinburgh has been caught out,' the insider says.
The council's assertion that 'middle-aged men… take up more room' comes with an interesting side question. Most stadiums allow between 0.35 and 0.4m square per person to calculate safe numbers on a pitch, my insider says. Will the Oasis venues allow more space per person to take account of fans' middle-aged spread? Stand By Me, the band once sang. 'If my beer belly doesn't get in the way' might be an appropriate next line.
And, yes, the council does have legitimate cause for concern. Oasis fans' behaviour deteriorated as the band's career progressed. By the early-2000s, prior to their eventual split in 2009, wee-throwing among the crowd was on the increase (deposited into a plastic pint cup and spun through the air – I'm not condoning it, it's gross); some fans took to wearing ponchos to protect themselves. I once pulled pints at an Oasis concert in Finsbury Park in 2002. The fans were ghastly.
But let's do a fag-packet age analysis here. If those fans were in their twenties then – a reasonable expectation if they were teenagers during Oasis's 1994-1997 imperial phase – they will be in their mid-to-late forties now. You'd hope they'd be beyond the 'Catherine Wheel of p–ss' shenanigans today. Yes, they've got more money to spend – a recent survey by Barclays predicted that the average Oasis fan will spend a whopping £75.20 on pre-concert food and drink – but they'll also want to be tucked up in bed within an hour of the encore. There might even be a babysitter to relieve. How dangerous can they be?
Ahh, I hear you say, but what about their older offspring? A whole new generation of Oasis fans exists out there, having grown up with the sound of their dad's Definitely Maybe CD wafting up from the kitchen stereo. Will this younger cohort pick up the boorish gauntlet that their parents laid down decades ago? I'm not sure. Gen Z are impeccably behaved compared to their parents. They drink less and hate crowds – I'd be surprised if they caused the havoc that their parents once did.
A friend of the band had a slightly different take when I chatted last week. He reckons that, contrary to the above, older Oasis fans will be keen to recreate the mayhem of their youth – but their behaviour will be tempered by the presence of their children. 'Like a football match, you hope the presence of enough kids will calm it,' he said.
But whoever misbehaves, I'm all for it. Gigs are far too sedate these days. People's obsession with filming things means they're more interested in bragging on Instagram that they were there than actually enjoying the show as it happens. Oasis's music is perfectly suited to disorderly in-the-moment euphoria. The band's album and song titles say it all: Be Here Now, Stay Young, Cigarettes & Alcohol, Rock 'N' Roll Star.
One of the most fun crowds I've ever been part of was for a band not dissimilar to the Oasis of 2025. In December 1991, the Ramones played O2 Brixton Academy. Like Oasis, the US punk band were a loud, brash and middle-aged heritage act. Joey, Johnny and Marky Ramone were actually a decade or so younger than Liam and Noel are today. But the crowd was full of barrel-chested older men bouncing around as if their lives depended on it. At one point, in the thick of the moshpit, I slipped and fell. A plump hand reached down and yanked me up. I was clapped on the back by a man who looked like a fat Lovejoy in a grandad sweater. He checked I was OK and bounded off. Legend.
And then there was Pulp last week. The audience was the same age as the Oasis fans will be. The band came on early and played Disco 2000 before 9pm. The place went bananas. And they were in bed by midnight. Let the middle-aged chaos begin.
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