Stop sneering at Oasis fans

Local councils across the UK now seem incapable of performing many of the tasks they’re paid to do, from rubbish collection to road maintenance. On the flipside, they are increasingly eager to stick their beaks into things that are none of their business. High-up on Edinburgh Council’s list of worries, apparently, is Oasis’s upcoming tour.

Oasis are scheduled to play three shows at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium in August. You might think this would be welcomed by the council as a boost to the local economy, bringing revellers and their wallets into the city from far and wide. But as leaked council documents reveal, councillors clearly see Oasis fans as the wrong sort of punters.

The document cites ‘concern’ about the crowds and predicts ‘medium to high’ levels of ‘intoxication’ at the sold-out concerts. It has also warned nearby pubs that the ‘middle-aged men’ likely to be in attendance ‘require more room’. Which is a not-so-subtle way of branding them overweight.

If the classist undertones were not already clear, the document also paints the Oasis gigs as a threat to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which runs for four weeks from the beginning of August. Because of the ‘tone’ of the Gallagher brothers, the council said it is ‘concerned about the safety of the Fringe and its performers’. Supposedly, many performers at the more middle-class Fringe are ‘considering not attending’ in order to avoid the Oasis-loving throng.

In plain English, Edinburgh Council has essentially dismissed fans of Oasis – one of the most successful British bands of the past 30 years – as old, drunk, overweight and uncouth at best. The council seems to be just one step away from passing on their concerns to Prevent.

Predictably, Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher is having none of it. ‘I’d love to see a picture of all the people on the Edinburgh Council bet there’s some real STUNNING individuals’, he wrote on X. ‘Quite frankly your attitude fucking stinks. I’d leave town that day if I was any of you lot.’

As ever, Gallagher is spot on. Those snobbish, killjoy councillors should keep their ‘concerns’ about Oasis fans to themselves.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.