I dug out my ticket from the first time I saw Oasis – Lancashire County Cricket Club, 15th September 2002 (yes, I know, late to the party!).
How much? A mere £28.50, which compares favourably with this year’s prices (an average of £150 a pop, assuming you could get one).
A quick inflation guide is handy here. The average price of a pint of beer in 2002 was approximately £2, whereas it’s now around £5 (variations obviously apply, but you get the picture). ‘A spokesperson for the band’ (if only there was one) would no doubt claim that as the cheapest ticket for this year’s tour officially ‘starts at’ £76, the 2025 pricing isn’t a rip-off at all.
But that was before you factor in eye-watering handling fees, the scam of ‘premium’ tickets, dynamic pricing, and the rest. The entertainment business has clearly perfected the art of price-gauging in the intervening years, while at the same time discovering there is no price cap on nostalgia.
What do I remember of the actual show? Not much as, like most of the 50,000 attendees, things were starting to get hazy well before the opening bars of ‘Hello’.
The setlist leaned heavily on Heathen Chemistry – seven tracks – and you can guarantee that no more than two of those will make it on to this year’s tour setlist.
The one thing I do remember is the shower of urine falling from the skies as pints of piss were hurled skywards, a less than wholesome Manc gig-going habit at the time. I believe Lancs CCC had to move their next home game on health and safety grounds due to a contaminated outfield. (At least the price of a pint of pee appears to have remained consistent over the intervening years.)
How different to 2002 will this year’s shows be (besides a preponderance of mobile phones and, hopefully, clear skies overhead)? The truth is, they’ll be exactly the same: a bearpit. A loud, raucous, drunken karaoke singalong, leaving attendees with a sore throat and a throbbing head, and a licence to brag (‘It was amazing – you should have been there’). Oh – and a ticket stub (or a boring digital print out to be exact) so you can remind everybody ‘I was there’ a quarter of a century later.
