Oasis Won't Play Glastonbury 2016, But Would Consider Reuniting - For A Quarter Billion Pounds

You can’t put a price on creativity, or on spirit, or on musical chemistry. But if you’re Oasis founder Noel Gallagher, you can apparently put a price on reuniting for a tour, and the bidding starts around a quarter of a billion pounds.

“I’m sure there are countless, thousands of people who would love it. But there’s one that wouldn’t: me," the guitarist told Chris Moyles. “One should never say never, though, when someone’s waving a check for a quarter of a billion.”

In an interview with the Daily Star, the Oasis guitarist confirmed that he was not interested in playing a headlining show at the iconic British music festival Glastonbury in 2016, not because of any misalignment with the festival or artistic difference, but because the festival’s organizers wouldn’t be able to pay him enough.

“Would we ever do it? They don’t have enough money,” Gallagher said. “That’s the bottom line.

“I know what they pay and it’s not enough.”

While that might sound like a lot of money, it's closer to the going rate for an extraordinarily popular live act. Touring can be dangerous and expensive for artists at the start of their careers, live shows are a lucrative proposition for the world's most popular musicians. This past year, the British boy band One Direction raked in $290 million when it embarked on the highest-grossing tour of 2014, and a number of legacy artists did just fine on the road as well: Paul McCartney's Out There Tour, ostensibly meant to support his album "New," hauled in $107 million.

While the Oasis figure would top those totals, that extra money may be meant to make up for the unpleasantness of touring with people you don't get along with. Gallagher and his brother, Liam Gallagher, who acted as the band's lead singer, have had a notoriously combative relationship that has not improved with age. In 2009, right before what wound up being the band's final show at Wembley Stadium, Liam smashed his brother's guitar minutes before the band was scheduled to go on stage. Noel quit the band that night, and the pair have not gotten on well since.

Since starting in Manchester back in the 1990s, Oasis has sold an estimated 77 million albums around the world. Their third album, “What’s the Story (Morning Glory),” remains the fifth-highest-selling album of all time in the UK, behind Adele’s “21,” the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and a pair of greatest hits albums by Queen and ABBA.