‘The first reunion rehearsal was like an exorcism’: The biggest revelations from Oasis film Don’t Look Back in Anger

It was a glittering, celebrity-packed affair for the UK premiere of Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, the documentary film from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight about the biggest rock reunion of all time. For the lucky fans who got tickets to the band’s 2025 tour, the film is a chance to relive an event that many believed was impossible: once-warring Britpop siblings Noel and Liam Gallagher reuniting onstage for the first time since 2009. For others, it’s an opportunity to at least feel like you were there, with Knight and his team – including directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern – putting you right in the heart of the action with some truly electric concert footage.

Even the premiere itself had a little of the anticipation of that first reunion show, which took place on 4 July at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. Starry guests walked the red carpet on Monday (7 September) and filed into the Cineworld at London’s Leicester Square, forming a scrum in the entrance hall. Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour was mobbed by some eager young lads who asked his wife, author and photographer Polly Samson, to take a photo. Rubbing elbows in the theatre were Johnny Marr, Vernon Kay, Sienna Miller, comedians Rob Beckett and Roisin Conaty, and Premier League footballer Jack Grealish, along with Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, Bastille frontman Dan Smith and Line of Duty star Vicky McClure.

Hosting proceedings was radio presenter Edith Bowman who admitted she was “shaking” as she introduced the team behind the film and then Noel and Liam themselves – with the younger Gallagher brother egging on the applause. “The warning is… it’s very emotional,” Knight told the audience before the screening began.

It wasn’t an overstatement. Here are the six biggest moments from Don’t Look Back in Anger.

Liam and Noel at the London premiere of ‘Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger’ (Reuters)

We finally know how that first rehearsal went

In a practice room kitted out with cameras, Noel rehearses with the rest of Oasis… apart from Liam, who is due to join them after being absent for the first few weeks, as planned. The tension builds, then suddenly the door swings open and Liam strolls in. It’s fascinating to observe their body language: Noel walks over and tries to initiate conversation, Liam shrinks away from him then finds a way to distract everyone: Joey Waronker’s baffles around his drum kit are “giving me the hump already”. Evidently keen to get going, he steps behind the mic – “ready then?” – and they’re off. Job done, Liam picks up his bag and walks out again, not a word to anyone. Noel struggles to get a sense of where his brother’s head is at. “Pure f***ing anger,” Liam says in a voiceover. “I needed to calm the f*** down.” He describes those first rehearsals as being like an “exorcism”, in which he channeled all his resentment, anger and hurt of the last 15 years into their songs.

Liam and Noel reflect – just a little – on their feud

We all saw them trading insults in the press and on social media (Liam comparing Noel to a potato is the stuff of legend, while Noel famously described Liam as “the angriest man you’ll ever meet. He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”), but how did they feel about the moment Oasis broke up? “It didn’t sit right with me,” Noel says, even while describing Liam as a “f***ing pain in the arse”. Liam refers to the row that brought everything crashing down in 2009 as “a little argument” – Noel has said previously that Liam came into his dressing room wielding a guitar “like an axe” and nearly took his face off with it. Don’t Look Back in Anger does what its title suggests, and skirts around the gory details of the brothers’ animosity. Instead, we hear Noel confess that he was born with “one fatal flaw – I can’t forgive people”. He and Liam also agree that after the split, “everything felt f***ing weird”; Noel saw the world become “a s*** f***ing place – people want escape”. And that’s what the reunion was going to give them.

Liam and Noel backstage during the Oasis reunion (PA)

Liam does care, actually

For all Liam’s bravado and Noel’s admiring remark after the first studio meet – “there is a man who truly does not give a f***” – Liam takes rehearsals very seriously. He ditches the cigarettes and alcohol to preserve his voice; Noel throws in more praise, that Liam, 53, sounds like a singer in his early thirties. “It takes a lot of caring to not give a f***,” Liam says with his signature wisdom. While Noel is pacing around backstage at the stadium in Cardiff, Liam apparently rocks up 20 minutes before showtime: no rehearsing for him. “What the f***?!” Noel exclaims. “You absolute f***ing mad c***.” You can almost hear the shrug in Liam’s voiceover: “Gotta put your big boy pants on and just f***ing do it.”

Noel definitely cares – and he didn’t realise quite how much

Noel has a reputation as a grouch – Don’t Look Back in Anger does a lot to dispel that. For the first 40 minutes onstage in Cardiff he’s fighting back tears, overwhelmed by the reaction from the 80,000-strong crowd. “I wasn’t prepared for the intense outpouring… the sense of what it meant to people,” he says. He sees fathers with their sons in the crowd and has to fight not to bawl, seeing how the band’s music has been passed on to younger generations.

Noel was moved by how many young fans were in the crowd at the Oasis shows (Getty)

The Oasis reunion brought their families together

Noel jokes about not being able to stay out until the early hours like they used to – and The Independent reported at the time how Liam was also on best behaviour, scarpering after the shows to avoid temptation at the after parties. But their offspring picked up the baton eagerly – Noel details how his eldest son, Donovan, was found “absolutely spangled” after one show and throwing up in a car. His and Liam’s kids, he says, are now “best mates”.

Left to right: Lennon Gallagher, Donovan Gallagher, Anais Gallagher, Molly Gallagher, Sonny Gallagher and Gene Gallagher at the UK premiere of ‘Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger’ (PA)

Noel’s relationship with Liam is better than he could have imagined

Noel says there are “two Liams” – the serious guy he saw in rehearsals, and the one onstage balancing a tambourine on his head and making it look cool: “If I did that, I’d look like an utter c***.” Halfway through the documentary we finally see them sitting next to one another in the present day: Liam makes Noel howl with laughter as he talks about the genius behind their habit of barely moving in live shows. “Imagine Mick Jagger… if there’s one night where he’s just like, ‘Ah I can’t be f***ed,’ but he’s got to,” Liam explains. “Us standing still onstage… genius.” Noel feels like patching things up “fixed the narrative” of the band. They text one another regularly – “we never did that before” – and send each other silly videos. The Oasis story is no longer about the anger between brothers. As Noel puts it: “Now it’s about forgiveness.”