THESE days, the Zeitgeist might prefer to be seen on the town with the likes of Coldplay — but for a band shadowed by past glories, Oasis are holding their own.

With the triumphalism of Britpop a distant dream they have become a gathering post for a generation glued together by lad culture.

And unsurprisingly it’s those old songs that still divine hysterical levels of adoration. Goaded on by a We Will Rock You beat from new drummer Zak Starkey, Live Forever is transformed into a massed karaoke singalong. It’s enough to make Liam Gallagher crack into a rare smile.

The Oasis singer was one of the few sober people in Hampden Park — but that’s not to say that the ravages of the lifestyle haven’t taken their toll. Resculpted by countless hangovers, the cocksure bellow of yore is now a gravelly epilogue to the dissolute aspirations of Oasis’s early hit Rock’n’roll Star.

Where rockier new songs are concerned that’s not an unwelcome development. The long transition from the cokey nadir of Be Here Now to the current album Don’t Believe The Truth means there isn’t a trace of indie left in them any more. The primordial boogie of Lyla and Mucky Fingers may seem underdeveloped on record but their chundering simplicity seems custom-built to fill the vast space.

Over two hours, it became instructive to monitor the way both brothers have developed over the years. Noel Gallagher’s playing has assumed a lived-in languor more commonly associated with Eric Clapton. For much of the set, his furrowed monobrow suggested bafflement at the reaction these songs inspire.

His fans might be revolted by the idea of talking about their feelings — but the genius of Wonderwall is that it seems to do it for them. As such, it’s no accident tonight that the one line everyone sings along with is: “There are many things that I would like to say to you but I don’t know how”.

Liam, on the other hand. Well, Liam is . . . Liam. In pin-stripes, shades and deer-stalker, he seems perpetually poised on the brink of offering everyone outside for a fight.

But it’s a body language with which all the men here are fluent. During Champagne Supernova, accusing fingers from the turf point at the “lightweights” in the stands, as their owners chant: “Where were you when we were getting high?” But what does it mean? Well, what did it ever mean? Noel Gallagher’s vague paeans to the human condition continue to buckle under anything more than a gram of scrutiny. But then scrutiny was never the point of Oasis.

They’re a Grateful Dead for the Paul Calf generation. And for 45,000 Glaswegians, their continued existence is enough cause for celebration.