The UK’s summer of Oasis is over – but the unity and euphoria it created is unforgettable | Emma Garland

Bringing together people of every generation and accent, the Gallagher brothers articulate something at the very heart of Britishness

Everyone is here. Facebook mums clink plastic cups of frozen cocktails. Dads sneak their teenage daughters to the front of the heaving queue for the women’s toilets, which a girl with large hoop earrings has taken it upon herself to run like the navy (“Go! No time for wiping!”). A man desperately tries to keep up with his drunk-on-a-mission missus by hanging on to her belt loops, while a group of lads with photorealistic tattoos argue over whether to load up on pints or head in to secure a premium standing position. In every direction, best friends of all generations doggedly traverse a packed-out Wembley Stadium, each clutching two pints and a Twix to their chest. Others lean in for group selfies beneath the gigantic digital sign proclaiming “Oasis Live ’25”.

The air is a tangle of Glaswegian accents, Rochdale accents, Cardiff accents, East End accents and Scouse accents as strangers genially befriend each other; the horizon a jumble of jeans-and-shoes, jorts, and bucket hats of all designs. There are people in original 1994 Definitely Maybe tour shirts, and people who weren’t even born when Creation Records dissolved; Gen X ravers who now manage sales teams, and millennials repping the H&M Pacha collection. There are sober twentysomethings, retired pillheads and, judging by the (small) number of people walking sideways, active ketamine enthusiasts. This is, in short, the most accurate cross-section of the British general public you will ever experience outside of a motorway service station.