When did Britpop Peak?
Short Answer
10th and 11th of August 1996. Knebworth. Two nights, a quarter of a million people, and the exact moment the whole thing became too big to survive.
Long Answer
It wasn’t the Blur versus Oasis chart war. That was the build-up. The flexing. The bit where everyone was still pretending it was about music. Britpop’s true peak, the moment it stopped being a scene and became a coronation, was Knebworth. August 1996. Oasis at the absolute height of their powers. Liam in full snarl. Noel with more riffs than sense. And 250,000 people singing along like it was national service.
It was obscene. Beautiful. Completely ridiculous. The biggest British gigs since Queen at Wembley. All built on two albums and an attitude problem. The country was changing. Labour were rehearsing their victory lap. Loaded magazine was still pretending irony was a personality. And there were actual queues to get Union Jack bucket hats. Knebworth wasn’t just a gig. It was Britpop’s final victory parade.
But like all peaks, it came with a view of the drop. Everything after Knebworth felt like a comedown. Be Here Now arrived a year later and brought with it the sound of a genre eating itself. Blur went lo-fi. Pulp got dark. The imitators multiplied. The originality didn’t.
So yes. Knebworth was the peak. The summit. The top of the rollercoaster just before the nausea kicked in. After that, Britpop was never quite the same. Still noisy. Still around. But no longer vital.
