The latter can be seen in clips on social media filming while Noel Gallagher sang ‘Little By Little’, with many noting he was the only one in his section who stood up throughout. In a separate clip, fans approached him as he left the venue and asked what he thought of the show, to which he replied: “Fabulous”.

As far back as 2015, Noel had joked that if McCartney wrote their comeback single, he’d be willing to discuss a reunion. The same year, he walked back comments he made to MTV, where he said Oasis were bigger than The Beatles, which McCartney said was the biggest mistake of their career.

“I thought, ‘So many people have said that, and it’s the kiss of death,‘” he said at the time. “Be bigger than The Beatles, but don’t say it. The minute you say it, everything you do from then on is going to be looked at in the light of that statement.”

Both brothers revere McCartney, with Liam fondly recalling a now infamous interaction they’d had while speaking to NME in 2017.

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Fans on social media were eating up the moment of McCartney — the only one standing in his section — filming Noel onstage, with one writing alongside the video: “Sir Paul McCartney watching Oasis tonight in Los Angeles. The teacher watching the student. Night of legends.” Another wrote: “noel gallagher is gonna go home tonight to the news of paul mccartney recording him, do you understand how insane that is? i’m so happy for them.” Another added: “Paul McCartney watching Oasis tonight like an elder wizard watching over his students. Beautiful.”

Another posted throwback photos of the Gallagher brothers wearing Beatles shirts with the caption: “i wonder if these guys know paul mccartney just recorded them on his phone while watching them sing the music he inspired them to make.”

When Oasis came out of the gate in the ’90s with the one-two punch of 1994’s Definitely Maybe and 1995’s What’s the Story (Morning Glory)?, they were often compared to The Beatles because of the band’s strong influence on the Gallaghers’ musical style, but they got off to a rocky start because of Noel Gallagher’s “bigger than The Beatles” comment. In a 2021 interview, Noel reflected on the time, saying, “When Oasis started, we were so big we were compared to [The Beatles] size-wise and musically, embarrassingly, compared to them as well.” When the interviewer asked why it was embarrassing, he said: “Because we weren’t as good as them.”

Also in 2021, Noel Gallagher played a set at the 50th birthday of Paul’s daughter Stella McCartney and even joined Sir Paul for The Beatles’ “Birthday” and “I Saw Her Standing There.”

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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.

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The songs indeed were the thing on Saturday. Oasis sounded great, with those three guitars snarling and shimmering over sturdy grooves that mapped a middle ground among punk, glam and late-Beatles balladry; Liam’s voice was somehow both brawny and sweet as he reached for the high notes with a kind of taunting effortlessness. And the brothers engaged in a bit of lovable stage business, as when Liam — looking superb as always in his signature shades and anorak — balanced a tambourine on his head and offered gnomic shout-outs to Woody Woodpecker and to the sword swallowers in the audience.

But this was the least showy pop show I’ve seen in years. Oasis’ comeback is as much about the crowd as it is about the band — as much about the people singing along with the music as it is about the people making it. Song after song took the imperative mood: “Acquiesce,” “Bring It on Down,” “Fade Away,” “Stand by Me,” “Cast No Shadow,” “Slide Away” — each a command happily obeyed until the next one was issued forth, each abstract enough in its emotional specifics to satisfy whatever need it might meet. (“Someday you will find me / Caught beneath the landslide / In a Champagne supernova in the sky” still makes gloriously little sense.)

Because they’d done so much to bring the audience together, you couldn’t help by the end of the concert to long for a glimpse of a little brotherly love between the Gallaghers. They obliged during the finale, Liam circling Noel then clapping him on the back as the last chords of “Champagne Supernova” rang out and fireworks filled the sky with smoky light. It wasn’t much, and it was more than enough.