Oasis' return stirs up all the feels

The rock band’s first of two shows in Pasadena touches fans at an emotional level.

- MIKAEL WOOD

JOEY WARONKER on the drums and Liam Gallagher perform Saturday night at the Rose Bowl in Oasis' first run of shows in more than a decade and a half.

Noel Gallagher scanned the audience at the Rose Bowl on Saturday night and pointed down at a fan in the front row.

“Young lady, what's your name?” he asked, tilting his head to try to catch the answer. “I can't really hear you, but this next song is for you.”

As he spoke, a camera found a woman wearing an Oasis T-shirt openly weeping — openly sobbing — and sent her image to the giant video screens flanking the stage.

“She's been in tears all night, this girl,” Gallagher added, “which I hope is not a review of the f— gig.”

Not far from it, in fact: Since launching its reunion tour in early July, Oasis — the swaggering British rock band formed in the early 1990s by Gallagher on guitar and his younger brother Liam on lead vocals — has been traveling the world inspiring great outpourings of emotion wherever it goes.

On social media, memes have proliferated equating the catharsis to be had at an Oasis concert to a form of therapy. More than one observer has suggested that gathering with tens of thousands of people to sing along with the Gallaghers' songs might turn out to be the cure for the male loneliness epidemic.