TORONTO -- There was a telling moment during Oasis' sold-out show at the Molson Amphitheatre on Saturday night when swaggering frontman Liam Gallagher held a crescent-shaped tambourine in his teeth for a prolonged period of time.

Nothing much to the act really, except there's something strangely riveting about Gallagher -- whose main moves in concert involve staring down the audience when he isn't saying something undecipherable in his thick Mancunian accent.

Helping Liam in the charisma department, of course, is the fact that he's got a monster voice made for stadium rock anthems -- as such set standouts as Go Let It Out and older songs like (What's The Story) Morning Glory, Cigarettes & Alcohol, Live Forever and Acquiesce -- could attest.

One funny bit of stage banter saw him pestered by an insect: "Did this f---ing mosquito pay for a ticket?"

He then pointed at it and said: "Why don't you go buy a f---king T-shirt?"

But how you felt about the entire Oasis show -- which ran a quick 90 minutes -- probably came down to how you feel about the band's new album, Heathen Chemistry, which was well represented by seven songs.

While Liam's own new tunes -- Better Man and Born On A Different Cloud -- stood up nicely in a live setting and brother-guitarist Noel's Force Of Nature actually improved, such ballads as Hung In A Bad Place, Stop Crying Your Heart Out and Little By Little only dragged the pace down.

However, the band's 16,000 fans, some waving Union Jacks, didn't seem to mind at all -- they were on their feet and cheering as soon as the group marched on stage to the opening instrumental F---in' In The Bushes.

It was as much a tribute to the group, now a decade into their career, as it was a sign of support for Noel who -- along with bassist Andy Bell and keyboardist Jay Darlington -- was involved in a head-on collision in the U.S. on Aug. 6.

The car crash forced the cancellation of three shows, and even before that Liam had walked off the stage in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., saying his voice had given out after a long flight.

There was no such controversy on Saturday night except for the fact that Noel opted to go the solo acoustic guitar route for the first encore song, Wonderwall, much to the dismay of a fan standing next to me. "Noel's dry," he said. "We need Liam."

Hey, I'm just glad Noel's alive.

And, in fact, I thought the Wonderwall rendition worked really well as it prompted a huge singalong.

Oasis certainly had some tough acts to follow with four impressive openers -- fast-rising Montreal power pop singer-songwriter Sam Roberts, Swedish psych-rockers The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, Kingston, N.Y.,-based avant-rock outfit Mercury Rev, and Toronto-based pop-rock heroes Sloan.

Of that quartet, it was TSOOL who really gave Oasis a run for their money.

Santa Claus-like frontman Ebbot Lundberg -- whose extended wails recalled both Jim Morrison and Eric Burdon -- was a formidable presence, as were his five animated bandmates.

Individually, there was plenty to observe from each of them but ultimately it was the bearded and long-haired Lundberg -- in a brown tunic and matching scarf -- that bore watching as he staged a revival-like performance.

The big man with the big voice came into the audience at the end of 21st Century Ripoff , and as he stood at the front of the 200 section, a couple of fans ran down to shake his hand while another handed him a copy of The Canterbury Tales.

Even the Gallagher brothers showed up later for TSOOL's midnight gig at the Horseshoe, with Lundberg proclaiming: "There's the most handsome man in the room," pointing to Noel.

Lundberg's got that title beat in the performing department.

JAM! Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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