XL Cover Story: ACL Festival 2005

Lukewarm CDs aside, Oasis onstage is an evening glory

Dario Lopez-Mills photos ASSOCIATED PRESS Brothers Liam Gallagher, left, and Noel Gallagher proved in the mid-'90s that they could go toe-to-toe with the Beatles. Oasis plays Saturday at 8:15 p.m. on the Cingular Stage.   » More ACL Festival.

The mop-topped quartet from Liverpool did not invent Britpop with its first single "Love Me Do" — there are no harmonicas in Britpop. But the double-sided follow-up smash, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There," which came out after the Kennedy assassination, gave millions of teens and young adults a rush they never experienced. Recreational drug use increased in the name of further emotional expansion.

Like Buddy Holly and the Crickets the Beatles were a self-contained rock combo, writing, playing and arranging all their songs. But there were two musical visionaries in the Beatles, not one, and the constant merging, submerging and defiant surging of those opposite personalities created a tension that could only be relaxed by ringing guitars.

If the Beatles were from West Texas, they'd have been the Bobby Fuller Four, playing rock 'n' roll in teen canteens and dreaming of being stars on the Sunset Strip.

The rockin' melody makers disappeared for awhile, as MTV seemingly turned every British group into vapid synth slaves with daft haircuts. Then, in 1995, the great Britpop movement came as a high-profile feud between Oasis, led by a brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher from Manchester, and Blur, who America wouldn't get until they sold their souls for "Whoo-Hooo!"

Blur was just dreadful, but Oasis was a fabulous bunch of Beatles worshippers. Making full use of modern technology and turning up the guitar squall a few notches, Oasis actually made records that stood up to the work of their heroes.

That claim sounds ridiculous today, seeing as how Oasis followed their first two brilliant albums with four or five — who's counting? — that numb with feathered mediocrity, but do this test:

1) Get yourself in a partying mood. 2) Listen to "Columbia" or "Bring It On Down" from the '95 debut "Definitely Maybe" or the title track of 1996's "(What's the Story) Morning Glory." 3) Now dip into the Beatles catalog for something that keeps the intensity going. 4) You can't.

The Beatles music is gone, except to the newest class of 12-year-olds who have been force-fed the stuff by parents terrified of potentially adding to MudVayne's fan base. The Beatles don't exist anymore. Listening to the Beatles is like pretending to live in the favorite house of your youth: You spend a lot of time sitting in the dark and trying to feel like you used to.

The dawn of Oasis was a British invasion of the spirit, the closest many of us in our middle ages would come to feeling like we did in 1964. Tomorrow came.

I don't have to look up dates for when Oasis hit. I know it was early 1995, because that's when my marriage was breaking up. I remember every detail: the row of Heinekens on the table, rolling my chair side to side on the hardwood floor as Liam Gallagher sang "Slide Away," and feeling so damn lucky to be miserable. She'd come pick up the baby and as she pulled away, I'd blast "Cigarettes & Alcohol" and laugh. God, what a mess! What a record.

In March 1995, about one-third of the music critics and half the record store managers attending South By Southwest showed up wearing green Oasis T-shirts. "I can't tell you the way I feel because the way I feel is oh so new to me," from "Columbia," was the line that we all understood. Do you believe in magic? We had been reborn by a band that took all the things we loved about pop music and made them better. We didn't even care that the band's name sounded like someone in the group played soprano sax.

The worst thing you could say about early Oasis was that their albums were spotty in places. "Definitely Maybe" has five throwaway tracks. "Morning Glory" has four. The highs were so very high, but the filler was a mild irritant that would go on to dominate later albums.

Hyped as a major creative step forward, the band's third album, "Be Here Now," was more consistent, but there was only one song I'd play over and over, and I can't now remember what it was called. Tomorrow left.

The band had completely run out of ideas by albums four and five so they did what others have done, working on textures sounds not songs — throwing in little electronic shadings as they rewrote "Hey Jude" for the 10th time. Liam Gallagher sounded as bored with his stretched phrasing as we had become. Songwriting brother Noel, meanwhile, seemingly gulped down his lifetime of creative juice in the bands first two years, instead of sipping it through an illustrious career.

Then earlier this year came word that the old Oasis was back. "Don't Believe the Truth" was advertised as a return to form, but I was skeptical. How could a band that had it all, creatively, lose most of it, then get it back? It just doesn't work that way. You don't go from the all-star team to the minor leagues and then come back on top.

I can't say that I listened to "Don't Believe the Truth" with an open mind. The album was fresh excuses from a lover who had been caught cheating years ago. I wanted to believe Oasis; needing a new favorite record, I wanted to be blown away. But I also knew it couldn't happen. Not to me. Not after the first two albums had me seeing God, and the next three (or four) had me seeing George Burns. It's over, gone. I gulped down a lifetime of pleasure listening to Oasis in two years. They just can't do it for me anymore.

Which is why I find it strange that I'm looking forward to seeing Oasis more than any other act at the ACL Fest. There's nothing quite like hearing Liam step out of that jungle of noise to sing "Morning Glory"; hearing Oasis play that song at the Austin Music Hall in 1996 is one of my all-time greatest concert moments. I still have the T-shirt and I plan to wear it.

The Beatles are long gone, having had only six good years as a band. Oasis had two, but they're still here, ready to light up the love fields. On record you get just the band's last year. In concert you get all the years.

Like a one-night reunion with someone who broke your heart years earlier, it won't be the same. But it'll be all right.