Oasis at Rogers Stadium, reviewed: “Wonderwall,” bucket hats and light jabs from the Gallagher brothers

It was well before sundown when I stepped onto the YZD tarmac and beheld the hulking mass of Rogers Stadium. It had been a short walk from Downsview station, which emerges from the fields around the old airport like a portal to nowhere. I and 50,000 others were about to fly to Manchester on Air Gallagher, a plane that was never meant to arrive. I’d borrowed a friend’s bucket hat precisely for this occasion. Oasis was back. Could we handle it?

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I had heard the horror stories surrounding Rogers Stadium well before I arrived. Rickety stands. Endless lines. A paucity of water and food. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to have strolled easily from the subway to the gates in under ten minutes, with TTC and event staff pointing the way. The signposts were helpful: Downsview truly is an airport, and a half-abandoned one at that. Overgrown fields and dilapidated hangars lined the fringes, and departing planes from nearby Pearson flew low overhead. I knew I’d reached the right place when the gravel shifted to asphalt, and a huge white X marked the spot.

The fans streamed in. One dad with a British accent scoffed at a “Fan Code of Conduct” sign posted along the way. “Come on,” he said. “This isn’t Taylor Swift.” True, but Swift’s signature drink wasn’t spiked 7 Up—nor was it so readily available at the countless food-and-drink counters in the courtyard beyond the gates.

The food and drinks are, of course, where the venue makes its money. With the gates opening at 4 p.m. and the concert wrapping at 11 p.m., a show at Rogers Stadium can be a seven-hour affair, and no outside food is allowed—no minor consideration when a concession beef patty goes for $8.50.

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In the sprawling courtyard, a festival atmosphere reigned. Fans in bucket hats drank hard lemonades while reclining on a grass levy under a Ferris wheel or in modernist tents with picnic tables. Adidas was everywhere: in a branding coup for the ages, Oasis had declared themselves “the band in the three stripes,” and fans were dutifully lining up for their commemorative merch. They did so in the shade: responding to another early gripe, the venue had erected white tents above every winding merch queue.

In fact, most of my fears were unfounded: the bathrooms were plentiful and actually nice. After waiting a mere minute for one of the countless gender-neutral restrooms, I was treated to a clean stall with a commode that flushed. I could even wash my hands, and with soap no less. Toronto’s parks department could take notes.

The floor lines started early and went long, but it took me no time to get to my grandstand seats. A 20-minute break followed the energetic opening act, Cage the Elephant, during which the sun set and summer performed an Irish exit: hard winds blew the Oasis and Rogers-branded flags and the temperature dropped to 17 degrees. The crowd on the floor danced to a piped-in “Rockin’ in the Free World” if only to stay warm. And then, it was time. The towering black panels behind the stage came alive with a pop-art montage of newspaper headlines guessing at, then hinting at, then confirming this very reunion tour.

On came the brothers. Noel, looking like the 58-year-old man he is, slouched with a guitar on stage right, a spot he rarely moved from all night. Liam, still the bruiser, wore his trademark Adidas bucket hat pulled low over a hood. His eyes remained hidden all night, making him little more than a mouth, the platonic ideal of a singer. “Thank you, Toronto! Thank you very much!" he cried after opening with “Hello” and its outro lyric of “It’s good to be back.”

As far as the crowd was concerned, it was. You could feel the bass through the stands—which felt sturdy despite the rumours—and we happily sang along to the hits. The sheer scale of the place could be inspiring when the lights hit just right, illuminating the sea of singing heads filling the floor. It was less so, however, when the outer fringes became visible: the back quarter of the stadium was conspicuously empty. This was, we were assured, a sold-out show, but it didn’t always look like it.

Despite the hype you’d expect from such a long-awaited reunion, there was an energy problem. The lads on stage weren’t moving much. When Liam tried to amp up the crowd with some mid-song banter, there was a 10-second silence as we all strained to decipher his Mancunian accent. He jibed that we were all too stoned on “ganja and mushrooms” before expectantly jiggling his tambourine—which finally got the cheers he was apparently going for. “Not perfect, but all right,” he shrugged, launching into the next one.

An hour in, Liam exited stage left and Noel took over for some solo songs. That’s when things really dropped off. Noel is a first-class singer-songwriter and the undisputed songbird behind the band. But, absent his brother’s unpredictable swagger, Oasis felt like a bunch of tired dudes phoning in the hits. The vibe shifted and the crowd murmured as fans chatted among themselves. It picked up again once Liam returned, but by the time the band exited for the bring-us-back-to-play-“Wonderwall” encore, the cheering sounded downright tepid. When they did emerge, it hardly felt like we deserved it.

And then they played those three hits—“Don’t Look Back in Anger,” “Wonderwall” and the closer, “Champagne Supernova”—and it all gelled. Noel stepped away from the mic for the choruses, trusting the crowd to take care of it. And we did, followed by an explosion of fireworks.

It was over, but it wasn’t—we still had to leave, all 50,000 of us going to the same place, all wanting to get there first. It was easy to exit the stands, and we moved swiftly through the festival area. Then we stopped. Suddenly we were in the mosh pit again, but there was no music—just a crowd marshal on a stage and event staff holding neon light sticks. It became a giant game of red light, green light, and Squid Game came to mind. The same path that had taken me 10 minutes on the way in now took 45.

At last, the train. We reached it through wide-open Presto gates, no POO in sight. We were all exhausted or drunk or both. Just as soon as we got moving, we stopped again. An emergency alarm has been pulled at Wilson station, just ahead. One inebriated woman behind me tried to start a “Don’t Look Back in Anger” singalong and became audibly frustrated when it failed to catch on. When we finally pulled into Wilson, I got off and took the bus.