WE were always going to be in safe hands with Noel and his troupe of seasoned musicians. For this was the sensible Gallagher after all.

The chief Oasis songwriter, reserved brother to loutish Liam and the king of the pithy one-liner. The BIC was packed with fans ready to receive his latest solo creation.

But before that, Blur’s Graham Coxon was on hand with an energetic support slot that buried the ghosts of Britpop rivalry.

Drawing heavily from his last album A+E, Coxon attacked the BIC with his unrelenting sonic assault of lo-fi guitar.

The tempo dropped somewhat with the arrival of Noel who was accompanied by his High Flying Birds and the studio audience from a TV talk show. This gathering on stage was actually the Crouch End Festival Chorus Choir who helped Noel ease into his anthemic sound.

New tracks Everybody’s On the Run, Dream On and If I Had A Gun came to life with the full choir and horn section chipping in.

While sedate, the baiting crowd of Oasis die-hards accepted the High Flying Birds material and nodded along to The Death Of You and Me and the jangly strains of The Good Rebel.

With recent single, AKA...What A Life proving to be the strongest of Noel’s latest offerings. The fans loyalty was soon rewarded with the first Oasis track of the night, an acoustic version of Supersonic.

Without a hint of Gallagher swagger, Noel and his band produced a thoughtful, stripped-down version. Dedicating Oasis b-side D'Yer Wanna Be a Spaceman? to Graham Coxon, Noel kept the crowd belting out every word with him on Talk Tonight and Half The World Away.

Obviously keen not to alienate his followers that had forked-out a small fortune, the encore yielded yet more classics from the Oasis back catalogue. Treated with due care, tracks like Whatever, Little By Little and Don’t Look Back In Anger show why Noel Gallagher is one of the finest songwriters of his generation.

While it was refreshing that the new songs blended with the familiar, I doubt they will live forever or define an era.

With the 20th anniversary of Definitely Maybe fast approaching, some might say that Noel’s solo project might fly the nest when the inevitable Oasis reunion begins.