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Richard Ashcroft has been confirmed as the “very special guest” set to support Oasis’s forthcoming UK and Ireland tour dates.
The Manchester-formed rock band announced the news on Monday (21 October), as they acknowledged the long-running friendship between Ashcroft and the Gallagher brothers.
The news comes after The Independent exclusively revealed last week that Ashcroft had been booked as a support act.
One of Oasis’s first national tours was as support to The Verve in 1993, while Ashcroft’s band returned the favour two years later when they supported Oasis at The Bataclan in Paris.
Ashcroft said in a statement: “As a fan from day one I was buzzing for many reasons when the news of Oasis’s return was announced. I can say with no exaggeration that the songwriting talent of Noel and Liam’s pure spirit as a lead singer helped to inspire me to create some of my best work.
“It was the perfection of ‘Live Forever’ that forced me to try and write my own. They dared to be great, made the dreams we had real and I will always remember those days with joy. Now it’s time to create more memories and I’m ready to bring it. See you next summer. Music is power.”
Noel Gallagher wrote the track “Cast No Shadow” from Oasis’s second album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, as a tribute to the Lancashire-born singer.
“[Ashcroft] always seemed to me to not be very happy about what was going on around him, almost trying too hard,” Noel once said in an interview with Select magazine. “I always felt he was born in the wrong place, and he was always trying to say the right things, but they came out wrong.”
Ashcroft said he was honoured to have inspired the song. However, asked by The Guardian in 2010 if “casting no shadow” meant he was a supernatural being, he responded: “I can’t work out if he means I’m a witch, vampire or just incredibly emaciated and thin cos, you know, I haven’t really got enough body mass to cast a shadow.”
After The Verve’s third album Urban Hymns and the accompanying single “The Drugs Don’t Work” topped the UK charts in 1997, Noel said he was “the happiest man in the world”.
That same year, he called Ashcroft a “genius” and suggested their comparative lack of success to Oasis was because “circumstances worked against them”.
The Verve went through their third breakup in 2009 and have not reformed since; Ashcroft has enjoyed a successful solo career, releasing six top 10 albums including 2016’s These People.
In 2021, he shared his sixth solo record Acoustic Hymns Vol 1, a collection of new versions of songs spanning both his solo career and his time in The Verve; Liam joined Ashcroft for a duet of “C’mon People (We’re Making It Now)” from his debut solo album, Alone With Everybody.
Oasis tour the UK and Ireland from 4 July 2025 to 28 September 2025, with all dates already sold out. They will be supported in North America by US rock band Cage the Elephant.
