Consider the plight of the long distance pugilist. Here they are, the Mancunian candidates, home from home for another sold out bout, defending the title of who-knows-what while everybody knows the real blood and guts are being shed in the bare knuckle brawls of Detroit and the supper club bloodbaths of New York and even the more gentlemanly contests taking place in Whelan’s and Vicar St.

Yet Oasis are not past their prime, they’re in it. Only problem is, many of their once-upon-a-time expanded audience have switched leisure pursuits. The halcyon boys of summer in their ruined Adidas are trying to give up the fags and blow and booze since that first heart murmur, taking solace (or lack of it) in The Office and The Sopranos, while their nephews and nieces are stuck on Nirvana nostalgia. The 24 Hour People Party has been frozen inside the glass case of celluloid, suffering death by posterity.

But still the faithful returned in their thousands to The Point tonight, the wide boys and beer monsters and bandy legged Liam/Brown clones all looking for familiar rather than strange. The collective object of their allegiance have put on a few pounds, but remain lean and hungry, perhaps mindful that previous shots at bulking up with unnecessary extras like horn sections and blues harpists resulted in the bloat of Be Here Now. Last year’s Heathen Chemistry was no stunning return to form, but rather the consolidating move they really should’ve made after Morning Glory, a buff enough trad-rock offering studded with a handful of great songs and a few more that sounded like they should’ve been.

That said, tonight was probably as good as Oasis get in 2003, which is very, very good, at times stratospheric, although they keep hitting their heads on a glass ceiling of their own construction.

Two things:

(i) They need to sort out their front of house. Tonight’s mix was serviceable – certainly nowhere near the aural abortion of Witnness – but still, the listener misses the clean punch and scalding dynamics of peers like U2. Although, in the engineer’s favour, it’s no joke balancing a band whose main component is a mid-range sludgy overloaded guitar.

(ii) Just like Mariah doesn’t do stairs and Michael doesn’t do real life, Oasis don’t do in-the-moment out-of-body transcendence: no banter, no crowd participation routines, no Jagger-esque callisthenics. They show up, slope on, play hard and fuck off. Which plays great on the Dublin docks, but such chin-high attitood means they can wave bye-bye to mid-western stadia.

Mind you, Liam’s looking fit on tea and water rather than lager, flak jacketed, legs splayed, singing his heart out. To his left, Noel is a wiry little bleeder who’ll blindside you with jagged breaks when you least expect it. Side by side, these two resemble a slightly less fragrant Steptoe & Bro. Behind them, the rhythm section can more than cover their arses, although it must be said that they only hit truly dirty grooves on mid-tempo tunes like ‘Columbia’. Set ignition points such as ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’ and ‘Supersonic’ still cut it, but could use a little more of the Watts ’n’ Wyman swagger you only get through playing a hair behind the beat rather than crowding in on it.

But…

The magic was magic. The coke psychosis of ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory’. Noel’s gorgeous goodbye-to-all-that ‘Little By Little’. And still their greatest song, ‘Champagne Supernova’ rendered tonight as a gloried lament for all our five-year lost weekends.

As a certain singer asserted in this very venue some dozen years ago: time to dream it all up again.