THE build-up to Liam Gallagher’s arrival – a drum roll, a blaze of lights, a roar, beer cups hailing through the air – rang riotous and raw.

This was the replicated territory of every Oasis gig until the band’s violent split in 2009, complete with their old opener, ******* in the Bushes.

Reinvented as England’s clearest rock star incarnate, Gallagher entered under a simple illumination of his confrontational slogan, As You Were, and spent 90 minutes proving himself one of the only singers who can ignite arenas while standing statuesque in a raincoat.

Love him or lampoon him – the audience was unequivocally adoring here – this was a night with none of the travails stars weighed down by a distant back catalogue are traditionally tormented by.

Gallagher’s voice remains a rasping, forced impersonation of its inimitable beginnings, and songs from his new album inevitably hit lulls against the blockbuster power of Slide Away and Shakermaker.

Yet as unadventurous as they are, the youngest tracks hold their own by playing to type: For What It’s Worth aimed for the cod-sentimentalism of Oasis’s Stop Crying your Heart Out, and drew the same lighter-waving response.

With swathes of people exchanging aggressive hugs, the less obvious setlist choices could have been a damp squib. Instead, Rockin’ Chair was an inspired selection, and tracks from Be Here Now, that drug-fuelled stew of an album, sounded rejuvenated.

Cigarettes and Alcohol and Live Forever sent a seismic wave of emotion through the crowd. Hood up, teeth bared, Gallagher finished with two encores, looking markedly more energised than he did during the turgid final gigs of his old band.

In a manufactured musical landscape where claims of authenticity ring wearyingly hollow, his bristling presence is a pure study of a devoted rock and roll star staying rogue in emphatic style.