After 16 Years, Oasis Retakes Stage With 'Hello'

Before an ecstatic capacity crowd in Wales, Oasis kicked off its reunion tour on Friday, beginning with "Hello"—including the "it's good to be back" refrain—and carrying on with a celebration of the band's greatest hits. It was a moment fans had longed since the band broke up in 2009, and thousands of them milled about in the streets of Cardiff during the day awaiting showtime—"somewhat anxiously," the AP reports. But the perpetually feuding Gallaghers, Noel and Liam, made it through the show without incident. There was no onstage banter between them, and they kept well apart except for an approximation of a hug, but Paul Glynn writes for the BBC that they "sang together perfectly."

Liam Gallagher asked the crowd if it was all worth it. The answer was a yes. At another point, he said, "There are many things I'd like to say to you ... but I don't speak Welsh." Noel, 58, focused on his guitar, per the AP, while Liam, 52, snarled into the microphone with an undimmed swagger. They played for two hours before 60,000 people in Principality Stadium. Assuming the reunion spirit holds, Oasis has another 40 concerts scheduled for the world tour, all of which are sold out, per the New York Times. "The first night, they'll play for sure," said a hotelier from Palermo, Sicily, who slept in a tent in Cardiff. "Tomorrow's show? Who knows."

Other fans said they'd come from Brazil, Peru, South Korea, and the US for the reunion. A 37-year-old woman who traveled from Shanghai said she's loved Oasis since she was 13, per the Guardian. "When I feel sad, their songs make it better," she said. "The songs mean a lot—their spirit gives me the hope to meet difficult things and it can become the energy for me." She added that she thinks the concert will turn out to be an important moment in her life. "It's very, very special—emotional," said a 44-year-old man from Edinburgh who attended with childhood friends. "It's a chapter of our lives."