On a night when not one song was delivered from a standing position, it's a shame nobody christened the opening night, sponsored by The Evening Standard and The Gibson Foundation, of the Teenage Cancer Trust's week at the Royal Albert Hall, Men On Stools.

Openers Shack wailed on their stools. Bad haircuts and bad dress sense notwithstanding, their three-part harmonies were fabulous.

Out of time, out of tune and utterly incomprehensible between and during songs, the normally energetic The View looked most uncomfortable on their stools until an oompah version of Squeeze's Up The Junction.

Noel Gallagher, chief Man On Stool, is beginning to make a habit of these mostly acoustic concerts and it's easy to see why. Free of the burden and star quality of his young brother ("I asked Liam to come down tonight, but he used the words 'fuck' and 'charity' in the same sentence," he said) and of being part of the Oasis behemoth, Gallagher and his music had space to flower in a new setting.

Nobody would suggest Noel is in danger of stealing Liam's charisma, but so loved are these songs and their creator that he can entrance a cavernous venue simply by unfurling the introduction to Wonderwall.

An all-women, jeans-clad, string octet helped out intermittently, but this being a charity show, there was what even Gallagher admitted was "somewhat inevitable" help from the wholly silver-haired Paul Weller on The Jam's The Butterfly Collector and The Beatles' All You Need Is Love, although the irony of the curmudgeons' curmudgeons duetting like English Proclaimers on the smiley anthem was lost in the moment.

In truth, Gallagher was in cheery fettle and during the second encore, broke down in giggles when he fluffed Strawberry Fields Forever's second verse. Liam, you suspect, does not do breaking down in giggles.

Elsewhere, Slide Away was dedicated to "my lovely missus", his pregnant girlfriend Sara MacDonald, while performing most of the ever magnificent, Don't Look Back In Anger with the house lights on was a first night of the Teenage Cancer Trust Proms masterstroke. Noel Gallagher should do this more often. He could make a living out of it.

The Royal Albert hosts the Teenage Cancer Trust shows featuring Gallagher again tonight, Russell Brand ( tomorrow) , Kasabian (Thursday), Kaiser Chiefs (Friday) and The Who (Saturday).

www.teenagecancertrust.org