“We were just lads from a council estate. Two brothers. Head cases.”

Directed by: Mat Whitecross

Synopsis: A chronicle of the turbulent rise of the biggest British rock group of the ’90s, Oasis, and its two front men, Noel and Liam Gallagher.

Twenty years (!) removed from Oasis’s career-defining performances in front of 250,000 fans at Knebworth, their music has lived on, but what’s faded into the background is the storm that the band whipped up around them. And yet, as we see throughout Supersonic, it’s the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, as much as it is the music, that made them such a magnet for fans and the tabloids alike.

Front men Liam and Noel Gallagher have been open about their destructive relationship, but seeing it laid so bare as we do here makes it as fascinating now as it was back in the ’90s. The footage captured from the band’s heyday is remarkable, personal, and serves to both humanise the duo, and make them feel like rock gods once again. It feels scrap-booky in the way it’s edited together, a looseness which suits Oasis perfectly – they were never ones to rigidly follow the rules, after all.

We don’t get an all-encompassing look at their career, rather a focused look at a specific period of time when they were at their peak. Which does mean that we skip over the Gallagher’s take on their infamous feud with media-enforced rivals Blur, and their eventual self-destruction, which is potentially an equally compelling story. Yet the brutally honest interviews with their management team, their family, and the musicians themselves more than make up for this. It reveals that the Gallagher brothers were just as loud and arrogant as we’ve been led to believe. But also just as talented.

With its heady mix of euphoria and nostalgia, Supersonic will leave you feeling as joyous as it does old.

Rating (out of 5):