FFinally, at 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, the guesswork was over: Oasis announced that they would be embarking on a 14-date tour of the U.K. and Ireland next summer. “The guns have fallen silent,” they said in a joint statement. “The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see it. It won’t be televised.”

Delightfully, the announcement came in the kind of theatre we’ve come to expect from the Gallagher brothers. A secret meeting. A tantalizing teaser – a surprise dedication to Noel and a mysterious date – at the finale of Liam’s performance last week.

Enough coded tweets. There are already reports suggesting that only 15 highly trusted – and strictly confidential – people knew about the tour.

Those closest to the deal said the atmosphere was “electric” on the set of a top-secret photo shoot for the poster that will be used during the comeback tour.

Even insiders to the project didn’t believe they would ever “live to see the day when the brothers would be side by side again.” Insiders said The Sun: “It was a pinch-me moment having Noel and Liam together. It’s taken a lot of effort to get them to this point, but they’re thinking of the fans.”

When the official 8am announcement went live, the crowd inevitably went wild. The quintet dominated the headlines once again. Ticketmaster announced they would have to double their IT and customer service staff to handle the expected August 31st sales. Grown men at X created fictional Gen Z women to punish them for wanting tickets, and the battle for the biggest fan began. We all got pretty nostalgic and asked ourselves: why now?

There is one obvious answer. There are already rumours and rumours circulating about the £50 million the duo could earn from the tour. One talent agency executive even speculates that the comeback could earn the band as much as £400 million.

But despite reports of a row over money – and Noel’s 2021 comments that he would get the band back together for £100million – Liam has already refuted claims that money is the motivating factor.

In hindsight, there were plenty of other clues. After Noel announced his reported £20million divorce from Sara MacDonald in January 2023, who was rumoured to be “strongly opposed” to Oasis reforming due to her strained relationship with his brother, fans started reading Liam’s tweets. “Hollies he ain’t heavy he’s my brother – Google search,” he posted alongside the song.

More recently, in an interview a few weeks ago, Liam Gallagher’s 23-year-old son Gene revealed that his father was up for it. “I mean, will they do it? I don’t know,” he told the interviewer. “I don’t know. I would love it, but it’s out of my control… I have a feeling my dad would want it too,” he added. “Let’s hope it happens.”

Feeling that he probably knew more than he was letting on, once he had a few pints, Sunday Times Style writer tried again.

Have you and Anaïs ever talked about Oasis getting back together? she pressed. To which he pressed: “No, we joke about it but we don’t get into it. She knows what her dad is like and I know what my dad is like. Hey, we’re one big happy family, everyone.” He laughs. “It’s nothing to do with us.” But could you not intervene? “They’re both (Liam and Noel) way too smart for that, it would never work.”

But two months ago, observant Redditors on the Oasis subreddit began posting rumours of a Wembley Stadium reunion from someone who “works within the music industry alongside a well-known current band”.

A Parisian commentator heard the same thing firsthand from a roadie on Liam Gallagher’s 2024 tour, she said. In June, NME reported that despite their very public estrangement, Liam “saves a seat for Noel at every solo show”.

It was no coincidence that many thought this was nothing more than a power grab – their history speaks for itself. The band had burst onto the scene in the 1990s at a time of great potential. They sang about and for the working class, and pulled the rule book on “us” – the young, the fearless, the estate kids – and “them” in the wake of a Conservative election victory with their first definitive album. But their disruptive nature wasn’t reserved solely for the fans they found in a politically charged youth.

Offstage, the Gallaghers’ relationship dominated the headlines. The rivalry that began in their shared childhood bedroom spilled over into their new careers from the start. As early as 1994, during their first American tour, a performance ended with Liam hitting his brother over the head with a tambourine and walking off stage. Just a week into recording their second album, (What’s the story) Morning Glory?Noel hit Liam with a cricket bat when they got into a brawl in a pub in Monmouth.

When they finally broke up nearly a decade later, it was Liam wielding a guitar “like an axe,” he told the Associated Press in a later interview. “And he swung that guitar around and he kind of, you know, smashed my face in with it, you know?”

The feud eventually split the family in two. Noel stated that he would “never forgive” his brother for leaving the band; at the 2018 NME Awards, Liam claimed that Noel was the “biggest liar and biggest cheat in the business”. He once declared that he would “rather eat my own shit than be in a band with (Noel) again”.

For their mother, Peggy Gallagher, the brothers both acknowledge that it has been difficult. Some even suspect that she was the driving force behind the reunion.

In 2017, Liam told BBC Radio 2 that “the families haven’t seen each other, and my kids haven’t seen his kids. I haven’t seen his kids,” the Mirror reported. He added that it would be “wonderful for my mother” if the couple could patch up their differences. “And then maybe we can get the band back together or maybe not, but that would be nice.”

And isn’t it just? For now, family and band are back together, with the only looming battle for tickets on Saturday. The rumours have all turned out to be true – and, for this week at least, Oasis have become one of the UK’s most sought-after bands, almost to the day they burst onto the scene as scrappy start-ups fresh from Manchester’s Burnage council estate.

Although no one knew that yet. Sure MaybeTheir debut, shot to number one upon its release on 29th August 1994 and would go on to become one of the most era-defining records of the last century. Brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher were suddenly two of the most lucrative names in music and today they are still proving their worth, with their record-breaking reunion tour set to take place.

But let’s not forget that the band’s legend and musical success have always come with dangers: feuds with Britpop’s hot boys Blur; the well-documented, explosive hatred between the two frontmen during and after their split in 2009.

Those closest to them point out that there’s still a whole year between now and the summer of 2025, when the Gallagher brothers promise to take the stage for the first time in more than a decade. Will this unexpected ceasefire hold? Maybe. Will it be worth the wait? Absolutely. Until then? Watch this space.