Oasis will be supported for their UK and Ireland shows next year by former The Verve frontman and solo artist Richard Ashcroft, and indie rock band Cast, The Independent can confirm.
Sources close to the Manchester-formed rock band said the two acts have been booked to open for them on all of their scheduled UK and Ireland dates next year, as part of their hugely anticipated reunion tour.
Singer Liam Gallagher previously teased the news from his X/Twitter account last week, following the announcement of the North America and Australia legs of the Oasis ‘25 tour. An official announcement is expected to go out next week.
The Independent understands that Cast will perform first, followed by Ashcroft, then Oasis.
Ashcroft is a longtime friend of both Liam and his older brother, Noel, who supported his band ( known simply then as Verve) back in 1993.
Noel wrote the track “Cast No Shadow” from Oasis’s second album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, as a tribute to the Lancashire-born singer.
Placed between the band’s first No 1 single “Some Might Say” and their rock anthem “She’s Electric”, the ballad includes the lyrics: “Bound with all the weight of all the words he tried to say/ Chained to all the places that he never wished to stay.”
“[Ashcroft] always seemed to me to not be very happy about what was going on around him, almost trying too hard,” Noel once said in an interview with Select magazine. “I always felt he was born in the wrong place, and he was always trying to say the right things, but they came out wrong.”
Ashcroft said he was honoured to have inspired the song. However, asked by The Guardian in 2010 if “casting no shadow” meant he was a supernatural being, he responded: “I can’t work out if he means I’m a witch, vampire or just incredibly emaciated and thin cos, you know, I haven’t really got enough body mass to cast a shadow.”
After The Verve’s third album Urban Hymns and the accompanying single “The Drugs Don’t Work” topped the UK charts in 1997, Noel said he was “the happiest man in the world”. That same year, he called Ashcroft a “genius” and suggested their comparative lack of success to Oasis was because “circumstances worked against them”.
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The Verve went through their third breakup in 2009 and have not reformed since; Ashcroft has enjoyed a successful solo career, releasing six top 10 albums including 2016’s These People.
In 2021, he shared his sixth solo record Acoustic Hymns Vol 1, a collection of new versions of songs spanning both his solo career and his time in The Verve; Liam joined Ashcroft for a duet of “C’mon People (We’re Making It Now)” from his debut solo album, Alone With Everybody.
Meanwhile, Cast were formed in Liverpool in 1992 by John Power, following his departure from The La’s, and Peter Wilkinson, formerly of the band Shack. They rose to fame amid the Britpop scene of the mid-Nineties and released records including their 1995 debut, All Change,and 1999’s Magic Hour.
They split in 2001 after a poor reception to their fourth album, Beetroot. The band reformed nine years later and released their fifth record, Troubled Times. Their seventh album, Love is the Call, was released in February this year and achieved a No 22 spot in the UK charts.
Gallagher is said to have described watching Cast live as a “religious experience” in an interview with the band for the Daily Record. They previously supported Oasis during their historic Knebworth shows in 1996, along with The Charlatans, Manic Street Preachers, and Dreadzone.
Oasis tour the UK and Ireland from 4 July 2025 to 28 September 2025, with all dates already sold out. They will be supported in North America by US rock band Cage the Elephant; a support act for the Australia shows is yet to be announced.