The China Mail - Don't look back in anger: Can Gallagher brothers bury hatchet?

Yet again the feuding brothers behind Oasis, the biggest British rock band since the Beatles, have taken the world by surprise.

After spending the last 15 years saying that they could not stand the sight of each other, they announced Tuesday that they are getting back together for a reunion tour.

While older brother Noel had teased a reconciliation before, saying "never say never" last year, they both have a lot to live down.

"I liked my mum until she gave birth to Liam," he said at the height of their feud, slugged out in interviews and on social media. "I can't stand his voice," adding that his nine-year-old son was a better songwriter.

Liam Gallagher gave as good as he got, branding Noel's new band the High Flying Birds the "High Flying Turds", pointing out his brother's "uncanny" resemblance to Mr Potato Head and worse of all, calling him a "tofu-eater".

Nor is he a man who forgets. Ten years after Noel called him "the angriest man you'll ever meet -- he's like a man with a fork in a world of soup", Liam had himself filmed eating soup with a fork.

Even so, Noel admitted in an interview with the BBC that their very different personalities helped power Oasis's incredible success that saw them hailed as "the new Beatles" in 1995 on the back of worldwide hits like "Wonderwall" and "Champagne Supernova".

The tensions between the showy rock star histrionics of frontman Liam, and Noel's songwriting genius and sardonic, understated stage presence, almost brought the band down in flames just as Oasis went supersonic.

Noel admitted "smashing (Liam's) head with a cricket bat" in a studio brawl in 1995 as they recorded their most acclaimed album, "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?".

- 'Nearly took my face off' -

"I think maybe one of my guitars got damaged, and I blamed him. It might have been the biggest fight we ever had," Noel, now 57, later recalled.

A throwback to the guitar bands of the 1960s and 1970s, the Gallaghers grew up in a large clan of Irish working-class immigrants in Manchester.

Their father was a country and western musician, but it was their mother Peggy who brought them up, sending them back to her family in County Mayo every summer.

Despite being the singer, Liam, who is six years younger, was always junior partner -- a status he chafed at -- referred to dismissively by Noel as "our kid".

"I didn't even know Liam listened to music," Noel told the writer John Robb in his book "The North Will Rise Again: Manchester Music City".

"We shared a bedroom. He didn't have any records. While he was out messing about with his pals, I was at home smoking pot and playing guitar," Noel added.

Despite the clashes, the pair were responsible for some of the most memorable harmonies in popular music of the last 30 years, leaving their London Britpop rivals Blur in their wake as sales went stratospheric.

But their rock 'n' roll juggernaut came to a shuddering end backstage at the Rock en Seine festival outside Paris in 2009 when punches and guitars flew backstage.

With tens of thousands of fans waiting for the headline act, a festival organiser was forced to take to the stage to announce that "sadly just now Liam and Noel have had a fight. Oasis is no more."

What exactly happened that night has never quite been fully explained, but it has gone down in rock 'n' roll legend.

Noel claims that Liam grabbed his red Gibson electric guitar and came at him with it "like an axe... nearly taking my face off with it".

The repaired guitar was sold at auction two years ago for 150,000 euros ($160,000) with a note from Noel saying "Peace, love and bananas".

It remains to be seen whether peace and love will reign on the brothers' 14-gig reunion tour that begins in Cardiff next July.

"The guns have fallen silent," the band declared Tuesday as Oasis announced the comeback. "Definitely maybe," as their own song had it.

P.Ho--ThChM