Oasis Knebworth 1996 | Little White Lies

Oasis Kneb­worth 1996

23 Sep 2021 / Released: 23 Sep 2021

Words by Lou Thomas

Directed by Jake Scott

Starring Liam Gallagher, Noel Gallagher, and Paul Arthurs

Performer on stage surrounded by smoke, wearing a purple jumper and sunglasses.
Performer on stage surrounded by smoke, wearing a purple jumper and sunglasses.
3

Anticipation.

Enough Oasis docs now, surely?

5

Enjoyment.

An immense time capsule of the ’90s biggest British rock ’n’ roll gigs.

4

In Retrospect.

Essential for anyone who was there or wanted to be. Fun for everyone else.

The inside sto­ry of one of the great con­certs in British rock n’ roll his­to­ry is a wel­come dose of 90s nostalgia.

Doc­u­men­taries about gigs of his­tor­i­cal cul­tur­al import are all the rage this year. Sum­mer of Soul (…or, When the Rev­o­lu­tion Could Not Be Tele­vised) mem­o­rably explored the incred­i­ble music and fas­ci­nat­ing socio-polit­i­cal back­ground of 1969’s Harlem Cul­tur­al Fes­ti­val. Forth­com­ing Burn It Down! cap­tures the grim music and ugly vio­lence of Wood­stock 99. As one might imag­ine from its title, Oasis Kneb­worth 1996 is direc­tor Jake Scott’s com­pre­hen­sive look at the August week­end 25 years ago when the Man­cun­ian hell­rais­ers were at the peak of their powers.

Over two days on the grounds of Kneb­worth House, Hert­ford­shire, 250,000 peo­ple saw front­man Liam Gal­lagher and his song­writer broth­er Noël lead the quin­tet through two tri­umphant sets culled from their first two albums and their B‑sides banger The Mas­ter­plan’. Many thou­sands more applied for tick­ets, while fur­ther mil­lions lis­tened to the Sun­day night show on Radio 1 and oth­er broad­cast­ers across the world. Fans who weren’t there but des­per­ate­ly want­ed to be (includ­ing the writer of this review) record­ed the lat­ter gig on cas­sette tape and lis­tened back to it repeat­ed­ly for years after­wards. This par­tic­u­lar way of expe­ri­enc­ing the con­cert is actu­al­ly shown in one of the film’s well-realised re-enact­ments, which are giv­en extra cred­i­bil­i­ty from fan voiceovers.

These con­tri­bu­tions, along with some fas­ci­nat­ing, mov­ing and very fun­ny vox pops from pun­ters at the gigs add depth to the sto­ry of the biggest British rock n’ roll gigs of the 90s. Bores will tell you that Rob­bie Williams played three con­sec­u­tive nights to a big­ger cumu­la­tive crowd at the same venue in 2003, but no one real­ly gives a damn about that. Noël and rhythm gui­tarist Paul Bone­head” Arthurs offer some colour­ful remarks about the band’s speedy rise to suc­cess, as well as vivid insights into how things felt on stage (Liam con­tributes just one short quote but is very much the star of the film).

As for the real meat of the piece, Dick Car­ruthers direct­ed the actu­al 96 per­for­mances. Car­ruthers co-direct­ed Oasis: There and Then, the excel­lent com­pi­la­tion of the band’s Earls Court and Maine Road shows, so it’s no sur­prise that his team cap­tured the spir­it and the sound of the lairy Lan­cas­tri­ans with aplomb. Oasis were nev­er par­tic­u­lar­ly live­ly on stage but the songs are so colos­sal, any resis­tance is futile. Boom­ing ver­sions of era-defin­ing sin­gles such as Cig­a­rettes and Alco­hol’, Live For­ev­er’, Super­son­ic’, Some Might Say’, Don’t Look Back in Anger’ and Won­der­wall’ fly past with a pow­er that’d make an insect feel as mighty as Godzilla.

There were oth­er great bands around in 96 – and some of them, such as Man­ic Street Preach­ers and The Prodi­gy, were sup­port acts at Kneb­worth – but there was no one who could match Oasis in their prime. After Super­son­ic and Liam Gal­lagher: As It Was, one might ques­tion the need for yet anoth­er Oasis doc, but in this case the end the effort is jus­ti­fied, espe­cial­ly if you came of age to these very tunes.

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