“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”

Noel Gallagher’s glorious quote about Liam in April 2009 was perhaps a sign that even the notoriously combative brothers had reached a breaking point.

It came four months later, during a particularly bad-tempered gig in Paris (August seems to be the month of all big Oasis moments). No one was particularly surprised when Noel eventually left – even at their peak, friction was part of their fame.

Oasis were more than just a hugely popular band, they were a soap opera featuring two of rock ‘n’ roll’s most charismatic warriors.

A recent BBC podcast in eight parts The rise and fall of Oasis was not divided into albums or tours, but into eight famous battles.

However, it is worth remembering how famous they were.

For anyone who either didn’t experience it or did everything they could to avoid it, Oasis’ mid-’90s heyday was almost inevitable.

What’s the Story (Morning Glory) was the biggest British album of the decade, selling five million copies in the UK and 22 million worldwide.

Thirteen years before their quarrelsome 2009 finale, they were at the height of their imperial phase in August 1996, when 250,000 people watched them headline Knebworth over two nights in what was the pinnacle of Britpop.

The rest of the programme: Manic Street Preachers, The Prodigy, The Charlatans, The Chemical Brothers, Ocean Colour Scene, Cast, was just that – the rest of the programme.

In February 1996, Oasis performed Don’t Look Back in Anger and its B-side – a cover of Slade’s Cum on Feel the Noize – on Top of the Pops, making them one of the few bands in the show’s history to perform two songs in one episode.

And they appeared in the newspapers almost every day.

When Tony Blair won a landslide victory in 1997, he held a celebratory reception at Number 10.

The photo of him smilingly shaking hands with an equally cheerful Noel Gallagher became the defining image of that short-lived honeymoon, Cool Britannia – a revival of pride in British culture in the late 1990s.

“I was 30, on drugs and everyone was telling me we were the best band since who knows,” Noel recalls. “Then the Prime Minister would invite you for a glass of wine. It all becomes part of the high.

This was the last hurrah of pre-Internet culture, when fame in the charts, on TV and in the newspapers guaranteed that virtually everyone in the country, whether they liked you or not, knew of your existence.

Noel was right when he said, “You should see us working with The Rolling Stones now. Everyone’s heard of The Stones, everyone knows what they sound like, everyone knows what they do.”

There was only one direction possible.

When the band began work on their next album, Be Here Now, What’s The Story (Morning Glory) was still at number five on the US Billboard chart.

When it was released in August 1997, the initial excitement quickly dissipated. What is perhaps remarkable is that they managed to keep it together for so long.

When asked about the idea of ​​an opera about Oasis, Noel said: “I don’t think two guys having the same argument for 16 years is opera. Oasis: The Opera would be very short.”

But even in their most divided moments, they were still a force.

When I saw them at Glastonbury in 2004, I remember that even those who had come out of curiosity knew all the words. In an age of Spotify and private playlists, that doesn’t really happen in the same way.

“You never tire of looking at 15,000 people clamoring for Wonderwall. It’s better than drugs,” as Noel put it.

Now, 15 years later, Oasis has once again organised an event in August, and they are looking forward to August 2025.

The 250,000 fans at Knebworth in 1996 are now aged between 40 and 50, but many have passed on their enthusiasm to their children.

There are plenty of twenty-somethings who know all the words to Wonderwall, but to get there, we need 12 months without any major fights.

A cautious fan would be best off trying to get tickets for one of the first dates of the tour.