Oasis tribute band gets ‘crazy’ interest as Gallagher brothers confirm reunion
The band’s frontman says his drummer did not think it would happen.
An Oasis tribute band says it woke up to a “crazy” amount of requests on Tuesday morning after Liam and Noel Gallagher confirmed the pair will tour again.
Definitely Oasis is made up of Fraser Malcom on bass, George Aitken on guitar, Liam O’Hare on drums, Martin Reid, who plays Noel’s part, and Brian McGhee as Liam.
The Scottish act formed more than a decade ago after the Gallagher brothers broke up following a fight backstage in 2009.
McGhee, who spoke to the PA news agency dressed in his Liam costume via Zoom, said that his band has continued to grow in recent years from playing “small gigs” more than a decade ago to selling-out the 1,900-capacity Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow.
When asked about how it has been for his tribute group since the confirmation on Tuesday, he said: “The amount of emails I woke up to this morning’s crazy, all these festivals, it’s just wild.
“So yeah, I’m (going to) have to try and get through them all later on today. It’s going to be a busy few days.”
However, he was less sure that this would be a boon for his group when the July and August 2025 dates get under way.
McGhee said: “I don’t know what it’s going to be like when they’re out touring, because obviously demand for us is going to plummet, it’s going to fall off a cliff for a while, so we kind of expect that to happen.”
But McGhee does not see this as a negative.
He says as the members of Definitely Oasis are in “other bands”, and he is planning an album with his own music through the group Violet Sons, they will be “busy” at that time next year anyway.
He says his fellow band members hope to get tickets to attend Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium dates, and he wants to head to London’s Wembley Stadium.
He booked every weekend in June and July for hotels in London on Monday following speculation about the band reforming.
The 42-year-old Scottish musician said: “Buzzing, to be honest, can’t wait. It’s been a long time coming, just can’t wait to go and finally see them again and like the whole country. It’s just that, everything’s great again.”
McGhee, based in Edinburgh, says the real Oasis will “certainly make a pretty penny from it anyway, and they’ll be set for the rest of their lives”.
He says his drummer O’Hare was “always adamant” that it was “never going to happen”.
He added that he told him it would for years, and cited the Gallaghers appearing to warm to each other in public statements as a sign it was going to go ahead.
McGhee said: “It didn’t sound like it was going to happen at all, but then that changed last year, because he’d (Noel) done an interview, and he was asking Liam to phone him.
“And I thought at that point, I was like, ‘yeah, he’s going to phone him, it’s going to happen, guaranteed’ and obviously it has.
“That was a bit of a giveaway, and even some of the stuff Liam’s been coming away with, it’s just like, ‘yeah, I could see it happening’.”
During a show in Cardiff, Liam made a point of dedicating Half The World Away to his “little brother”, saying he is “still playing hard to get”.
Noel paid Liam a string of compliments in an interview released last week with music journalist John Robb at Manchester’s Sifters Records in honour of the album’s 30th anniversary.
Reflecting on Liam’s performance on a number of their hits, Noel said: “It’s the delivery or the tone of his voice and the attitude.
“I don’t have the same attitude as him.”
