NEWS
Music photographer Jill Furmanovsky said she wasn’t taken aback by the overwhelming excitement surrounding the Oasis reunion tour.
The photographer has been capturing the Wonderwall hitmakers for more than thirty years and shared that the Oasis Live '25 Tour, which brought Noel and Liam Gallagher back on stage together for the first time in 16 years, worked so well because the concerts have always been “about the audience”.
Jill, who first crossed paths with Oasis at one of their early shows at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in 1994, explained to NME: “It didn’t catch us off guard, because Oasis have always been about the crowd. Always. There was never much to shoot on stage.
“Even at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, the performance itself was simple, but the people in the crowd knew every word and were completely swept up in it.
“And that hasn’t really changed over time. They just bring out that songbook and deliver it. Liam is still magnetic and captivating, even when he keeps it minimal. It remains incredibly powerful. That’s the essence of their show.”
Furmanovsky, who has photographed icons like Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin over the course of her fifty-year career, added: “What they’ve done with this new tour, the production, and the visuals… it’s something special.
“The mix of generations in the crowd is also striking. I went with my 13-year-old granddaughter, and there were plenty of kids her age singing along word for word. It’s incredible.
“‘Biblical’ is the term people throw around. It sounds almost silly, but when two brothers who’ve been at odds for years come together again, there really is something biblical about that alone. Combine it with what they’re putting on stage… it’s unlike anything else.”
Jill’s latest book Trying To Find A Way Out Of Nowhere reflects her years documenting Oasis, and she shared that no current act matches what the Supersonic band represents. She was also able to photograph them once again at one of their massive Wembley Stadium shows during the reunion tour.
She said: “There aren’t many artists today who can step into the space Oasis occupies and actually live up to it.
“We’re in a different time now, a kind of in-between phase. It feels like the closing of a rock ‘n’ roll chapter. That doesn’t mean talent or creativity is gone. It’s like with painting — we still have great impressionists, but we’re no longer living in the impressionist era.”
NEWS
Sam Smith recently opened up about the “nightmare” experience of getting liposuction as a teenager.
In a new appearance on the Podcrushed podcast, the Stay with Me singer – who identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns – spoke with co-host Penn Badgley about deciding to have cosmetic surgery to remove excess fat at just 13 years old.
“I had an operation on my chest when I was 13, because it was starting to grow,” they explained. “There were different reasons behind it, but mostly, I was being teased so much. I couldn’t go swimming at school, and changing in the locker room was awful. So, I ended up having liposuction at 13.”
Getting emotional, Sam shared that they had long struggled with food and body image, though their parents were “incredibly supportive” of the choice to go through with the procedure.
Although the operation “worked,” the Too Good at Goodbyes star admitted that they wore the post-surgery bandage much longer than they were supposed to.
“It was all part of the struggle with eating and my body,” the 33-year-old said. “The liposuction helped, but it was also a nightmare because they gave me a bandage. If I wore it, I could skip to the front of the lunch line. So, I kept it on for nearly a year, saying, ‘Oh, don’t get too close,’ just so I could eat first… so really, the surgery didn’t fix much because I’ve always loved food.”
Lately, Sam has been performing a residency at the Warsaw venue in Brooklyn, New York.
The next To Be Free concert is set for November 19.
