The new Oasis documentary reveals Noel Gallagher was visibly shocked when Liam Gallagher raised his hand in the air during their first reunion show in Cardiff, according to director Steven Knight.
Director recalls Noel's reaction to Liam's gesture
Steven Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders and director of Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger, told Metro that Noel's reaction to Liam's gesture was one of genuine surprise. 'Oh, it was astonishing!' Knight said. 'Because you can see Noel wasn't expecting it!'
Noel's own recollection of the moment was less sentimental, with Knight recalling that the elder Gallagher brother wondered at the time: 'What the f**k's going on?'
For Knight, however, that small moment of bewildered brotherly affection carried significant weight. 'The stepping stones towards the destination are beautiful,' he explained.
From feud to reconciliation
Oasis famously split in 2009 when Noel quit the band after a backstage row with Liam before a Paris performance. Years of public insults followed before the surprise reunion was announced, turning the question from whether the brothers would ever share a stage again to whether they could stay on one.
Co-director Dylan Southern recalled wondering at the start of the project: 'Are they going to fight again? Will they make it as far as the first show? What will the rehearsals be like?' But he said it became clear 'from day one of the rehearsals' how committed the brothers were.
'It wasn't just about going out and doing the songs,' Southern said. 'It was about making the Oasis that turned up on these stages around the world the best version of Oasis that fans could see.'
Liam's disciplined approach
Southern revealed that Liam approached the tour with remarkable discipline. He 'didn't drink or smoke for months before the shows' and went to bed early throughout the tour. 'He kind of trained for it like an athlete, a boxer,' Southern said, adding that both brothers were 'really committed to putting on good shows'.
Knight said he hoped the film would become about something bigger than a commercial reunion. 'Here are two human beings who are famously split, and there has been a lot of bad feeling, a lot of bad words,' he explained. Against what he described as an era of 'spite and silent screaming on social media', Knight wanted to make something about 'love and reconciliation and forgiveness and redemption'.
When Liam first arrived to rehearse with Noel after years apart, Knight recalled: 'There was no high five, no hug, no words, no tears.' Instead, Liam walked into the room, spotted something on a drum without glancing at his brother, asked for it to be removed, and then they began to play.
Capturing the thaw
The production placed 10 fixed cameras around rehearsals so the Gallaghers could forget they were being watched, capturing what Knight described as the 'moment by moment thawing' between them.
Southern said the opening night in Cardiff will 'forever be the most special one' because nobody knew what would happen. 'Nobody knew the setlist. Nobody knew, you know, if they would turn up. Nobody knew if they were actually getting on,' he said. 'You could feel it pent up before they walked on stage, and then you could feel that moment of release.'
Co-director Will Lovelace said the hand-raising moment became 'this iconic moment' precisely because it was unplanned. 'Noel didn't know anything about [it] when it first happened,' he said. Liam continued the gesture across the tour, as if it were a silent, nightly apology to his older brother.
'Across the tour, as the months passed, they became closer and closer to each other, and that moment sort of took on a different significance,' Lovelace explained. 'It's the iconic moment from the tour.'
The filmmakers delayed a joint interview until the tour was well underway, having spoken to Liam and Noel individually beforehand about their 'worries and apprehensions'. By the time they sat them down together, Lovelace said it was 'like seeing them back in the day'.
'They're two very funny people sat down, seemingly having a good time talking,' he said. Southern added: 'I think people are going to see a different side of them. They're older. They're still, like, natural comedians, but it's just so nice to see them laughing together and reminiscing.'
Knight used the phrase 'emotionless emotion' to describe the Gallaghers' peculiar way of showing affection without appearing to. He cited Liam's dismissal of the feud's scale: 'You'd think I'd stabbed his cat or something.'
Knight also revealed an unusual coincidence: he had included a local priest in the documentary, and when they returned to film a sermon, the priest had been assigned the subject of brotherly reconciliation by the Vatican. 'I mean, can this be true?' Knight said, laughing. 'But that's what I'm told.'
The film captures a gradual shift: from two brothers who cannot hug or cry to the moment in Cardiff when Liam reaches for Noel's hand without warning, lifts it into the air, and repeats the gesture at subsequent shows, eventually leading to a kiss on the cheek and an embrace. For a pair of brothers specialising in 'emotionless emotion', that was perhaps as close to a reconciliation speech as anyone was ever going to get.
