Even from the back of Liverpool’s newest leisure hangar, there was no mistaking the Burnage swagger that — like Oasis’s music — has weathered few modifications over the years. Liam Gallagher’s appearance at Oasis’s first UK shows in more than two years was greeted with a response that reminded you that whereas other bands have fans, Oasis are like a football team: they have supporters. And football supporters don’t give up on their team merely because results are not all that they ought to be.

Hence, despite a mixed critical reception, Dig Out Your Soul had managed to shift almost 100,000 copies the day before Oasis arrived in Liverpool. But even an introduction from the boxer Ricky Hatton — giving personal assurances that the fan attack that landed Noel Gallagher in hospital in Toronto wouldn’t be happening in Liverpool — failed to dislodge Liam’s default expression of barely suppressed inchoate fury.

On Rock’n’Roll Star, the vibration of his lips making contact with the microphone resounded around the arena, easily a match for whatever his brother could shake out of his guitar. Whatever else was on the agenda last night, subtlety didn’t come into it. The components of the 2005 single Lyla broke down into roughly 80 per cent stampede and 20 per cent song, which dovetailed pretty much perfectly with the needs of those who had come to hear it.

As a spectacle, you can only get so far watching a mono-browed man in a designer leather jacket looking surly — even allowing that, on The Meaning of Soul, many of us will treasure the way he held a crescent-shaped tambourine in his mouth to make it look like a huge metallic smile.

This time, showmanship of a more conventional kind came from the back. Far from seeming nervous about debuting with the band in his hometown before 10,000 fans, the new drummer Chris Sharrock got on with the job of channelling the twin spirits of Keith Moon and Animal from the Muppets. Even Noel Gallagher nodded admiringly at the rhythmic landslide unleashed by the drummer in the middle of the new single Shock of the Lightning. But if other songs from Dig Out Your Soul are destined to join that one in the pantheon of fan faves, it was too early to tell from last night. The guitarist may ruefully note that his own Waiting For The Rapture didn’t go down nearly as well as Liam’s freshly minted slice of Lennonesque introspection I’m Outta Time. Similarly, the reception afforded to My Big Mouth from Be Here Now suggested that it might be best to wait another ten years before all but Oasis’s staunchest fans learn to love their most infamous rock folly.

But obtuse as some of their selections were, Oasis never left it too long before dusting down a surefire favourite, a Wonderwall here, a Supersonic there. Better still was Morning Glory, still the finest musical encapsulation of the suspension of cynicism that was, for a time, Britpop. Admittedly, it’s been a long time since Oasis made Britain feel that way. By the same token, gazing on at the response elicited by a concluding I Am The Walrus, you had to say, if this is a band past their prime, there is no shortage of other more fashionable acts who would swap with them at the drop of a hat.

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