SAN FRANCISCO -- For a moment Monday night, there was only Noel

Gallagher and his music.

That's all that there needed to be.

Seated on a stool at center stage, alone and in the spotlight, the Oasis

mastermind's voice rang clear and strong as he and his jangling guitar filled

the silence of the Bill Graham Civic Center with pure pop perfection.

It was just Noel, face to face with the several thousand once

screaming, moshing, crowd-surfing fans who'd come to rock with Oasis and/or

their psychedelic pop-rock opener Cornershop and who now found themselves

motionless, staring and at a loss for words.

After a sonically swirling performance by the sitar-inspired Cornershop, and

a series of straight-ahead Oasis rockers ("Stand By Me," "Supersonic" and

"Roll With It"), featuring lead whiner Liam Gallagher on vocals, big brother

cleared the stage, pulled up a stool and showed the people who was boss. Like

a teenager at a talent show, a quiet and demure Noel performed a few of his

songs in their most bare bones form, as one might imagine he first wrote them.

And for a moment, this mop-topped English brat with Beatles on the brain

stood for all that is good and even great about Oasis.

Stripped of all the false pretense, the Fab Four references, the attitude,

the bickering, the slagging of rock stars and fighting with superstars such

as U2's Bono, the overblown English pride, stripped of his band even (with his

younger brother out of the way), the guitar-slinging Noel proved he is all about Oasis

and, yes, Oasis is all about him.

"That was really a surprisingly good performance," said Tim Young, 26, who

had come to see the British quintet not expecting much and said he got more

than he bargained for thanks primarily to Noel's solo acoustic performance.

"I wasn't bored at all. Noel sounded great."

Not only did he perform a handful of tunes with a passion, pulling the

meaning out of each with his slightly screechy yet impassioned voice, but he

turned two of his band's otherwise mediocre pop songs from their latest Be

Here Now, namely "Don't Go Away" and "All Around the

World," into near perfect pop ballads. He even made a

surprise cover of his idol John Lennon's classic "Help" his own, strumming it

at half-tempo and thereby giving the normally angst-ridden tune a more

introspective feel.

But most of all, the time alone onstage gave Noel and his fans insight into

the music that has made a name for Oasis. In that brief span of time, he

captured the essence of what drives their sound -- unmistakably catchy

melodies wrapped around simple yet effective lyrics. Outside of his singing,

Noel said nary a word as a video of a disco ball spun on a screen behind him.

At one point, he stood, shuffled over to his amp to take a sip of a drink and

then slinked back to his stool. There was no pretense about it, just a guy

and his guitar and some good songs -- some really good songs.

As for the rest of the night, it was typical Oasis. Rhythm guitarist Paul

Arthurs and bassist Paul McGuigan stood practically motionless, lost in the

shadows of the stage lights, tragically shoe gazing. Drummer Alan White

pounded his kit dutifully, sometimes tossing in a tricky syncopated beat or

two for good measure. And the other brother, Liam, just paced around the

stage in his jeans and zipper-down shirt and, when called upon, crouched

below his mic, moaning his brother's lyrics more out of obligation it seemed

than anything else.

In the wake of his brother's performance, Liam seemed a cheap imitation.

If it wasn't clear before, this show proved beyond a doubt that the younger

Gallagher, for all his vocal affectations and rock rebel attitude, is about

as useful to Oasis as the tambourine he slaps halfheartedly throughout the

show or fires at the ground every now and again, for lack of anything better

to do.

"What can you say, Liam is Liam," 26-year-old Bert Tam said. "In my opinion,

he doesn't add much."

Even as the band returned after the solo set, Noel took lead vocals on "Don't

Look Back In Anger" while his brother remained offstage. Liam finished

things off, however, with the band's first big hit "Live Forever" off

Definitely, Maybe, moving into "It's Gettin' Better (Man!!)" off the

new album and closing with "Champagne Supernova," from (What's The Story)

Morning Glory?, which the obnoxious one dedicated to "all the fat-ass

bastards" in the upper level seats.

And as Noel and the rest of the band cranked the tempo, turning the energy on

high and jamming for nearly five straight minutes to close the show, Liam

promptly left the stage.

Maybe he couldn't bear to hear the truth. [Wed., Jan. 28, 1998, 9 a.m. PST]