Three decades since the height of Oasis mania, 2025 will once again be the year of the Gallagher brothers as they reunite for one of music history’s most anticipated events. Photographer Justin Thomas remembers well the hysteria around the Manchester band after they burst onto the Britpop scene in 1994.
And over the following years Justin got to first-name terms with Noel as he followed them around the world, beating many other photographers to exclusive off-stage pictures of the band. Justin, 68, who also photographed stars such as David Bowie, Prince, Queen, and the Sex Pistols, has now published previously unseen photos of Oasis in his new book How Does It Feel?.
He recalls: “Oasis were one of the bands I liked to tag myself along to because they had so much charisma and seemed to epitomise the 1990s, which was such a great time to be alive. There was so much optimism and London was swinging again with new, youthful bands.
“I got to know Noel much better, and he always remembered my name, whereas Liam was the complete opposite, he had no idea who I was even though I photographed him loads of times. “Liam was a bit like a wild dog, some days he’d come and lick your hand and other days he’d bite it off, you had to be a bit careful around him. But over the years both brothers allowed me to get close enough to get the photos of the world’s biggest band everyone else wanted.”.
- How Does It Feel? Oasis 1995/2000 is out now. Buy at hangingaroundbooks.com. I heard on the radio that winners of a phone-in to be extras in their next video, Roll With It, needed to get down to a studio in King’s Cross, so decided to try to get in. Amazingly I managed to convince the security that I had won and got in with my camera. For the next four hours I was standing stage-front with the hottest band in town, and nobody blinked an eye when I started taking photos.
