Everyone is here. Facebook mums clink plastic cups of frozen cocktails. Dads sneak their teenage daughters to the front of the heaving queue for the women’s toilets, which a girl with large hoop earrings has taken it upon herself to run like the navy (“Go! No time for wiping!”). A man desperately tries to keep up with his drunk-on-a-mission missus by hanging on to her belt loops, while a group of lads with photorealistic tattoos argue over whether to load up on pints or head in to secure a premium standing position. In every direction, best friends of all generations doggedly traverse a packed-out Wembley Stadium, each clutching two pints and a Twix to their chest. Others lean in for group selfies beneath the gigantic digital sign proclaiming “Oasis Live ’25”.
The air is a tangle of Glaswegian accents, Rochdale accents, Cardiff accents, East End accents and Scouse accents as strangers genially befriend each other; the horizon a jumble of jeans-and-shoes, jorts, and bucket hats of all designs. There are people in original 1994 Definitely Maybe tour shirts, and people who weren’t even born when Creation Records dissolved; Gen X ravers who now manage sales teams, and millennials repping the H&M Pacha collection. There are sober twentysomethings, retired pillheads and, judging by the (small) number of people walking sideways, active ketamine enthusiasts. This is, in short, the most accurate cross-section of the British general public you will ever experience outside of a motorway service station.
