Oasis released their first live album, Familiar to Millions, on November 13, 2000. Its main recording came from the band's July 21 show at Wembley Stadium in London, the first of two nights there that summer. The double album caught a changing lineup taking the songs from Standing on the Shoulder of Giants into the same set as “Wonderwall” and “Live Forever.”
Guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell had joined after two founding members left in 1999. They were helping Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher carry an established catalog into a different version of the band, during a year that had also tested the brothers' working relationship. Noel left the European leg of the tour in May 2000 before returning for the UK and Ireland dates. By Wembley, the group had both a fourth studio album to represent and a substantial back catalog to draw on.
The running order gave the new material room immediately. After the introductory “Fuckin' in the Bushes,” Oasis went into “Go Let It Out” and “Who Feels Love?,” all drawn from Standing on the Shoulder of Giants. Later, “Gas Panic!” stretched past eight minutes. That sequence put 2000's studio material at the front of the live album, then returned to it after a run of earlier songs.
There was space for the B-sides, too. “Acquiesce,” originally released with “Some Might Say” in 1995, led directly into “Step Out,” which had accompanied “Don't Look Back in Anger” in 1996. Placing them together made that part of the catalog a distinct passage in the concert. Both appeared on the first disc, before the second moved through songs including “Wonderwall,” “Don't Look Back in Anger” and “Champagne Supernova.”
The covers took the album beyond Oasis' own songwriting. Neil Young's “Hey Hey, My My” appeared late in the Wembley sequence, while The Beatles' “Helter Skelter” supplied an extra ending from another show. As OnMilwaukee reported ahead of release, that performance came from Milwaukee's Riverside Theater during the band's spring visit. The final track therefore connected the London stadium recording with an earlier stop on the same year's American tour.
Turning those performances into a live release required decisions about how much of the audience listeners should hear. Mark “Spike” Stent mixed the CD at Olympic Studios, while Andy Rose worked with Noel on the DVD mixes at Townhouse Studios. In a 2001 interview with Mix, Stent explained that he raised the crowd during sections where fans sang along. He also shifted distant audience recordings into time with the stage performance, correcting delays that otherwise produced a distracting echo on the drums.
“Seventy thousand people singing along is exciting,” Stent told the magazine. Rose approached the DVD's surround mix with the audience behind the listener, adjusting its timing while preserving the sense of space. The two formats offered different ways into the same concert: one built around a stereo record, the other around the filmed performance and a crowd surrounding the listener.
Familiar to Millions entered the UK albums chart at No. 5 in the chart dated November 19, 2000.
