A Sorta Review of Oasis at the Rose Bowl

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Bruv. I don’t think there is even a word to describe how excited I was when I heard Oasis was reuniting and touring in the US. They are absolutely one of my favorite bands of all-time, and they haven’t toured here or anywhere in more than a decade and a half. In the years since, I’ve seen both of the Gallagher brothers perform solo, but it’s just not the same without the ever-present possibility of brother-on-brother violence bringing the show to a screeching halt.

Because of Liam and Noel’s historically turbulent relationship, a lot of people asked if I thought the band would even stay together long enough to pull off a tour. I was never worried about that. They’re only doing a total of nine shows in North America and are expected to rake in anywhere from $9 million to $12 million per show in ticket sales alone. The Gallagher brothers might be a little emotionally unstable sometimes, but they aren’t stupid. That would be an absurd amount of money to leave on the table. Also I think they’d get sued if they canceled? Not completely sure, though. I’m not some kinda lawyer or something.

So they made it to Los Angeles! And I was there!

Let’s get the positive part of this review out of the way first. The show itself was incredible. Having seen Oasis in theaters and arenas before, I can confirm their sound works best in a stadium. They get accused of ripping off other bands a lot, but it’s only because they did rip off a bunch of other bands on their early albums. However, they also somehow don’t sound like any other bands. There is a very distinct tone and aesthetic to their music. It’s like getting hit with a wall of sound. Everything is big and upfront, but somehow nothing gets lost in the mix. In a venue the size of the Rose Bowl, that sound has a little more room to breathe and expand. I’ve seen this band four times now, and this is the best they’ve ever sounded.

As for the setlist that night, I have no valid complaints. I would’ve liked to hear a few more songs from the Standing On the Shoulder of Giants album, but you have to really really really love Oasis to want something like that. Most people in that stadium likely would not have agreed, and your first tour in more than a decade is not the time or place to break out the rarities and B-sides. If you were there to hear the hits, you heard the hits. If you were there to hear “Force of Nature” from the Heathen Chemistry album…

…this was not your night. You can see the full setlist here.

So, that’s the good news. Oasis was firing on all cylinders and sounded better than I’ve ever heard them sound before.

Now let’s talk about the Rose Bowl. This was my first time attending an event at what has come to be known as “America’s Stadium” and, holy shit, I hated it so much.

For starters, Los Angeles is hands down the worst city for attending live events. When most major cities build their various sports and live performance venues, they tend to also build some sort of infrastructure that allows for easily getting to and from said venues. I’m not exaggerating when I say LA does the exact opposite.

Damn near every major venue in Los Angeles is a genuine nightmare to get to. Dodger Stadium requires traversing a hill that gets so packed it takes a good hour or so to get up it if you’re driving. If you walk it you’ll get there faster, but also you might die. I took a comedian friend to a Dodgers game once and she damn near had a stroke making that walk.

Then there’s SoFi Stadium, which is but one of four major entertainment venues that were for some reason just haphazardly dropped into the middle of a residential neighborhood in Inglewood. Do you live in a normal, quiet community? Cool, now imagine 90,000 bloodthirsty Taylor Swift fans trying to make their way through it five nights in a row.

There is no dedicated street or exit ramp off the freeway that gets you there. Just regular residential neighborhood roads that are routinely flooded with thousands and thousands of people, year round. I’ve been there twice and it is my least favorite venue for anything anywhere.

When Shakira toured this year, I could have seen her at SoFi Stadium. I flew to Vegas and saw her at Allegiant Stadium instead. I went to where all the Raiders fans are now rather than risk having to make my way in and out of SoFi. It’s that bad.

To the Rose Bowl’s credit, the sound was amazing. To go along with all of its other flaws, the acoustics inside SoFi Stadium are notoriously horseshit. So, the Rose Bowl was better in that way, and that’s about it.

The first and main concern when it comes to the Rose Bowl is that the venue is in the middle of nowhere. Yes, it is technically in Pasadena, but one does not simply GO to the Rose Bowl. You go somewhere close to the Rose Bowl and then the adventure starts. After you park or exit public transportation, you still have a nearly two mile journey ahead of you. On the bright side, there’s a shuttle you can get on. On the not bright side, you’re gonna wait at least an hour or two before you can actually get on it. Another option is to just walk. Not undoable, but in 90 degree Pasadena heat it will be an unpleasant walk to say the least.

We ended up going with option three, which was to negotiate with one of the probably-unlicensed cab drivers who line the streets near the shuttle, offering to drive weary travelers the last couple miles for sometimes exorbitant prices. Fortunately, they are willing to negotiate. I found someone who was willing to drive me, my wife, and three total strangers for $20 each. If that sounds like it’s not worth it, that’s because you’ve never seen those shuttle lines. I’d still be waiting to see Oasis if I didn’t pay that $20.

So we made it to the general area of the venue, and the first thing we saw was a massive line that wraps all the way around some kind of service road in front of the stadium. After standing in that line for a few minutes like total rubes, a Rose Bowl employee approached and let everyone know there were actually three other lines that were all much shorter.

Unfortunately, the end of every other line was also positioned in the blazing hot sun, so I came up with a strategy I have dubbed “standing in line in reverse.” Instead of picking a line and standing at the end of it and maybe subsequently passing out from heat exhaustion like a few people apparently did, we opted to post up in a shaded area and wait for the end of one of the lines to get to where we were.

It worked great. By the time the end of a line got to us, it was cooking and we were inside the stadium maybe five minutes later at worst.

Next it was time to find our seats. Me and my friend/podcast co-host Travis Clark bought tickets together and we are both convinced that the tickets we paid for and the tickets we got were not the same. I consulted the seating chart after we paid and I feel like I would’ve noticed if we were in the third from last row of the stadium. My hazy memory of the day we bought them is that our tickets were in row 40-ish or so. Nay. We were in row SEVENTY-FOUR.

Sure, you only have to make that walk starting around row 30, but that still leaves 44 rows to go, and for some reason you get to do it all without the benefit of a railing or support of any kind, aside from the encouragement you get from spectators who made a similar climb and recognize you haven’t reached the end of yours yet. I knew once I reached the top of those stairs that I was not going anywhere else until the show ended, and I did not.

Remember when I mentioned that I saw Shakira earlier this year? Well, I wore the shirt I bought at that show to the Rose Bowl. I vastly underestimated the mass of Oasis’ Spanish-speaking following, so outside the stadium that shirt turned me into a minor celebrity. However, when we reached our seats, a guy who looked like he was old enough to have seen the Gallagher brothers’ parents in concert keyed in on that shirt like a UFO had just landed. He eventually got around to telling me that it was just because “you don’t usually see a man wearing a Shakira shirt.”

So that guy was fun! Next he started going on about how he didn’t really like Oasis and was just there to see the opening band. Then he informed me that, “in the ‘80s you had guys like Springsteen and Dylan and Bowie.” I replied by reminding him that, in the ‘80s, Springsteen and Bowie were monkeying with synthesizers and dancing in the streets with Mick Jagger, respectively, and Bob Dylan was singing about Jesus. He stopped talking to me after that. By the end of the night, though, lots of people around us were imploring the guy to not drive himself home. You can probably imagine why.

Speaking of the end of the night, that’s also an adventure if you visit the Rose Bowl. The venue has a strict 11pm curfew, and Oasis played until deep into the 10:50pm’s. That was great! Get your money’s worth and all.

The problem was that the parking lot Travis used closed at midnight, and the train I needed to get on stopped running four minutes after that. You might recall I mentioned that two mile walk to get to the venue earlier? Well, it’s also two miles on the way back. That’s just how miles work. So that made getting out of the Rose Bowl a literal race against time. We made it, barely, but that doesn’t change the fact that the last thing you want to do after a day in the blazing sun and a night on your feet cheering for RKID is a 45-minute life or death speed walk back to your selected means of transportation.

Again, though, all of those gripes are on the shoulders of the Rose Bowl. Oasis was amazing, and even if it meant another arduous trek to and from that nightmare of a venue, I’d see them again tomorrow if I could.

Want to hear Adam and Travis talk about the Oasis show they went to? Check out this week’s episode of You Don’t Even Like This Band at that link or wherever else podcasts are at! 

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