The truth behind the Oasis reunion headlines, captured in one photographer's 1,000 secret images

Most photographers dream of the single defining image. The frame that stops people scrolling, gets screenshotted a million times before breakfast, and becomes cultural shorthand for an entire moment. Simon Emmett got that. And then he was handed a tour bus pass, and told to keep going.

The image of Liam and Noel Gallagher standing together for the first time in 16 years dropped on 27 August 2024, the same day Oasis announced their Live '25 reunion tour. It went absolutely everywhere.

For Emmett, a portrait and beauty photographer whose work appears regularly in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and Esquire, it could have been a career-defining image by itself. But it turned out to be page one of something even bigger.

The results have now been gathered together in Oasis Live '25 Opus, a photographic chronicle of the tour produced in collaboration with the band. And make no mistake: this is not edited portfolio of the 50 best shots. The deluxe editions contain an astonishing 1,000 unseen images.

This is proper documentation: the kind of sustained, obsessive visual record that requires a very different mindset to the single-session portrait shoot.

What access looks like

Emmett had what every music photographer wants but rarely gets: genuine behind-the-scenes access throughout the entire global tour. Not a photo pit with a three-song limit, or a carefully staged backstage moment; the whole thing. The waiting, the pre-show nerves, the post-show release, the crew, the fans, the venues from Dublin to Seoul.

The photographs in this book deliver on that promise. There's a backstage shot of Noel and Liam, for instance, that feels genuinely unguarded: the kind of image that only happens when the subject has forgotten the camera is there. There's a long-exposure study of a drummer reduced to light trails and motion blur; the kind of technically adventurous work that only emerges when you feels secure enough in your access to experiment, rather than just document.

There's a wide stage shot from Seoul, the band silhouetted against a sea of phone-lit faces. And there's a close crowd shot of fans mid-song, mouths open, completely lost in it; captured from right inside the crowd rather than from a safe distance above it.

There is a tendency, when looking at work like this, to attribute its quality entirely to the circumstances. With this level of access, you'd expect the pictures to be good, right?

But access and great images are not the same thing. Think about it: tours have always had official photographers; yet most official tour books are forgettable. I've been collecting them since 1984, so believe me, I know.

To my mind, what Emmet has done here that's different is to get out of the way of the truth, rather than construct one. That instinct – to observe rather than direct, wait rather than prompt – is harder than it sounds. Especially when you are standing in front of one of the most famous bands on the planet.

This book, though, stands as proof that Emmet has pulled it off. In a way that every photographer, Oasis fan or not, can learn from.

Oasis Live '25 Opus is available in four editions, including the retail Live Forever Edition (336pp hardback, from May 2026). Three collector's editions (Wonderwall, Glory and Supernova) each feature 1,000 photographs spread across 648 pages.