Bonehead says Oasis should have ‘bowed out’ after massive performance

A performance which took place on this day in 1996 should have been when Oasis “bowed out” of playing, Bonehead says.

The long-serving guitarist, who returned for the Live ’25 tour, suggested the band went well past their expiry date on its initial run. While Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher are back on stage together for the first time in sixteen years, guitarist Bonehead says the initial run should have ended over a decade before it did. In an interview with The Guardian, Bonehead said the gig was the perfect way to end the Oasis mania which had swept the country in the years preceding the show. His comments were made just a month before Oasis disbanded on the Dig Out Your Soul tour. Bonehead suggested he was interested in rejoining the band, which he would do sixteen years later.

The gig Oasis should have ended on is their return to Knebworth in 1996, particularly the second night of their residency. He said: “I always thought we should have bowed out after the second night at Knebworth. Walking out on that stage is a feeling I can’t explain: a sea of people. Big!

“Afterwards, there was a void. You don’t jump off a ride like that and stay the same person. It took me two years to get back to who I was – where you don’t think you need to ring up management to ask for a car to get somewhere.” A setlist for Oasis’ second night at Knebworth can be found below.

• Columbia
• Acquiesce
• Supersonic
• Hello
• Some Might Say
• Roll With It
• Slide Away
• Morning Glory
• Round Are Way
• Cigarettes & Alcohol
• Whatever
• Cast No Shadow
• Wonderwall
• The Masterplan
• Don’t Look Back in Anger
• My Big Mouth
• It’s Gettin’ Better (Man!!)
• Live Forever
• Champagne Supernova (with John Squire)
• I Am the Walrus (The Beatles cover with John Squire)

Though he admits he “made a more-than-tidy pile” from being in Oasis after Knebworth 1996, Bonehead says the recording of Standing on the Shoulder of Giants simply “wasn’t enjoyable,” especially when compared to the band’s earlier days in the studio.

He added: “We’d made our money. We had big cars. We were renting out Christian Dior’s mansion in the south of France. That should have been a fun time, but it wasn’t. Liam was on a drinking ban, and I wasn’t helping by not sticking to it. Noel had his own problems, maybe. I wasn’t feeling it any more. I would have been lying to the band and the fans.”

Bonehead has since rejoined Oasis on the band’s reunion tour across the UK. The Gallagher brothers are set to play across the rest of the world, and fans are speculating over the possibility of European dates in 2026.