Bart Verbeelen arrived in Dublin on Thursday wearing his Bohemians-Oasis jersey collaboration. He said many people on the flight from Belgium were wearing it. The deep blue triangles complement the logo well – so much so that he wore it again the next day.
In 2000, he bought a ticket to see the Gallagher brothers live for €25, and as a diehard Oasis fan he was happy to spend 20 times that price to see them again in Croke Park.
“It’s the memory of a childhood,” he says, standing outside the band’s pop-up merchandise shop on Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green. “It was the mid-’90s, difficult times I think for everybody, and it was the sound of England. It was very important to us.”
He and his partner were behind four computer screens for five hours the day tickets for the comeback tour went live. He had tabs open for Dublin, London and Manchester in an attempt to hedge his bets. Morale eventually slipped, and they left their house to bring their dog out for a walk. When they returned, “Croke Park” was on their screens.
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“I was the 400,000th person in the queue, so I thought we’d never get a ticket... We then had to give an address that is not correct, because we are from Belgium but they needed an address in Ireland, so I said: ‘Let’s suppose we live in Limerick!’”
He said the concert is now a nice excuse for a quick city break, although he will not be visiting the Shannon Riviera.
“I think the special thing about Oasis is that when the fans come together, it’s a community ... We are proud of being an Oasis fan,” he says.
While the queue moves quickly at the pop-up, it keeps growing longer on Friday afternoon, on the eve of the concert, as concertgoers arrive in town.
The reunion tour has been lucrative for the Gallagher brothers, and is expected to bring benefits to the hospitality industry in Dublin and beyond. Some transatlantic visitors have planned long stays in Ireland around the Croke Park event.
Craig, from Canada, says: “We got the concert tickets last August and booked our vacation around it.
“I was so pumped to hear when they were getting back together. We got up at like midnight back in Canada to get tickets,” he said, facing a queue of 180,000 at one point.
“You get in line and go through all the emotions, thinking ‘Can you get tickets, can you not’. And then it all worked out, so yeah, we’re pretty excited.”
Emerging from the pop-up shop, he says: “It was pretty calm but it’s mayhem now, you can see the excitement.
“I’m sure Oasis are doing pretty good on merch sales right now.”
