We really can 'live forever'

“I’m not interested in being 22 again. I just want to feel the same thing I felt when I was 22.”
-Liam Gallagher

This last weekend, Heaton Park lit up with the sound of thousands singing the songs we grew up with, bucket hats, pints in hand, arms around mates who’ve shared this music for decades. I wasn’t there. I couldn’t get tickets. ​

​So, I’m flying to Los Angeles in September to see a band I never got to see when I should’ve.

The moment Oasis Live '25 was announced, I just knew, come hell or high water, I was going.

It’s not even just about the music, though I'll be honest, hearing Liam's distinct voice singing 'Sunshinnnnnnahhhh' live is probably going to undo me completely. It’s about something deeper.

That feeling of unfinished business. Of needing to stand there, in front of something that shaped who I became, even if I arrived too late the first time.

Because I did miss it, the first time around. Technically, I was only about 50 miles from Manchester during the peak of it all. But it never felt close. Not really. The people who went to those early gigs, who were at Knebworth, the chaos and the euphoria of it, I wasn’t one of them. I was 14.

I experienced it from a distance. A much younger me, taking it in second-hand. Too young to be in the thick of it, but just old enough to get it. Old enough to know it meant something to me.

Britpop wasn’t just a sound. It was a shift. And Oasis weren’t just another band, they were a moment. Loud, defiant, working-class confidence in a scene that had always leaned too southern, too polished. They made it okay to be proud of where you were from. To want more. To sing like your life depended on it.

Even now, those songs hit something that’s hard to put into words. They’re stitched into the background of memories I didn’t know I was making at the time. Long drives. Bad decisions. Falling in love, falling out. Wondering what was next.

So no, LA’s not exactly down the road like Heaton Park or Wembley, and if I could have scored tickets for either of those locations, I would have. But I missed out. Then LA was announced and the tickets went live. Success! Some things are worth going the distance for. And my god, what a trip it will be. 

And that’s the thing about nostalgia. We like to think it’s about looking back, but it’s really about holding on. Holding on to who we were. What we felt. Who we lost. The things that once felt huge but slipped away quietly while we were busy growing up.

The world moves quickly now. Too quickly, most of the time. We’re constantly nudged forward, scrolling, refreshing, discarding. And in all of that noise, it’s easy to forget just how fragile memory really is.

That’s why I’ve been thinking more about how we preserve it. Not just in photos and captions, but in voices. In real conversations. The kind you don’t edit. The kind that tell you who someone really was.

Because here’s what I know: the people who lived through the moments we weren’t there for won’t always be here to tell us about them.

And the people we love, our parents, our grandparents, our friends who’ve known us forever, won’t always be around either. But their voices can be. Their stories can be. If we make space for them. If we bother to hit record.

Legacy podcasts. Audio storytelling. Personal sound archives, call them what you like. I just know that when someone’s gone, a voice is one of the first things we forget. And the silence it leaves behind is deafening.

So while we’re here, while we can, we should be collecting them. Not just the big life stories, but the small, strange, funny ones too. What your mum used to cook on a Sunday. Your grandad’s favourite pub. The album your sister couldn’t stop playing the summer she moved out.

Because one day, those details will matter.

We spend so much time trying to capture the perfect moment for social media, content that disappears in 24 hours. But what if we used all that tech in our pockets to actually create something that lasts? Something to come back to. Something to pass on.

I’m going to LA because I don’t want to miss another chance to feel something that once felt like everything.

But I’m also writing this to say: don’t wait. Don’t assume there’ll be another tour, another time, another conversation. Make the effort. Record the story. Show up for the things that shaped you, and the people who did too.

Nostalgia isn’t soft. It’s not silly. It’s human. And in the end, it’s not about going back. It’s about making sure we don’t lose what made us.

So go. Get on that flight. Book the ticket. Hit record. Don’t wait for life to present itself perfectly, because the perfect moments are rarely planned. They live in the music that moved us, the voices we miss, the people we can still sit beside and ask, “Tell me about that time when…”

In a world that deletes and scrolls and forgets, we have the power to hold on. To live forever, not in some mythic way, but in the sound of a laugh we once loved, the story that shaped us, the music that still makes our chest ache a little when it kicks in.

Because some things are worth saving. And as Noel once said:

“You’ve got to make the most of it while you’re here.”
-Noel Gallagher