Sensible prog-rock bands try to ensure no one ever realises they play prog. What happens when you are deemed a prog band is that you are condemned to the margins – little radio airtime, few TV appearances, barely any coverage in the mainstream press – because it has been decided you exist solely for the delectation of a tribe that baffles the rest of the world. Once non-proggers have decided you are prog, that’s it. There is no way back for you. Just collect your Campaign for Real Ale membership card, go home and practise your drum solos.

Once non-proggers have decided you are prog, that’s it. There is no way back for you

Hence Radiohead – absolutely, indubitably a prog band, right down to the tricksy time signatures – don’t bang on about Tales From Topographic Oceans. Hence Muse – also absolutely, indubitably a prog band, right down to the concept albums – present themselves to the world as a power trio. And watching Air’s stunning son et lumière performance of their debut album Moon Safari – with long instrumental interludes, and Jean-Benoît Dunckel facing the audience, playing different synths either side of him with each hand, giving it the full Rick Wakeman – it was absolutely apparent that they too are a prog band, given a fair wind.

Moon Safari, which came out in 1998, was one of those records that seemed to exist in a world of its own. There were hints of lounge music and easy listening, bits of krautrock and electronica, all wrapped up in a package that was playful and welcoming, rather than just being an introduction to Dunckel and Nicolas Godin’s exquisite taste. Live, what came through most strongly was the absolute 1972-Pink-Floydishness of it all – the long, lazy melodies, the sense of stillness and care over the whole sound. The album’s closing track, ‘Le voyage de Pénélope’, was extended from its three minutes on the record into something vast and ever-evolving (and drummer Louis Delorme really was playing those Nick Mason fills that sound like an audio representation of a ship rocking on a moderate sea).

There were just the three musicians onstage – no guest vocalists, no additional guitars or horns – so it wasn’t an exact replica of the album so much as a representation of it – and all the better for it. There were new peaks, and the reworking of ‘All I Need’ without Beth Hirsch gave it a fresh spikiness. Once they’d finished with the main album, a greatest hits set continued and extended the mood; ‘Don’t Be Light’ was ecstatic and thrilling, a motorik rush to the end.

But we need to talk about the show, because the show was astounding. The trio played inside a low, white rectangular box situated on the Coliseum’s stage, open at the front and lined with LED bulbs that sometimes just lit them starkly, sometimes made the walls appear like mirrors, or showed rushing planets or retrofuturist graphics (there was no lighting directed at the stage; it all came from within the box), their little performance area wholly surrounded by darkness. From the front row of the Coliseum – and none of the reviewers in the front row could quite believe their good luck; it’s not usually like this – it was overwhelming, like looking through the windscreen of a car travelling at high speed. I’d be curious to know whether those in the gods found it quite as extraordinary as we did, or whether it was like watching something on a mobile phone from great distance.

There was more 1972 on view in Kentish Town, as Liam Gallagher and John Squire headlined a packed Forum (they’ve been doing a series of small gigs before Gallagher returns to his usual mega-shows later in the year) to play the album they have made together in full. The 1972 exposed here was that of Led Zeppelin and Humble Pie, real men playing real rock, the direction in which Squire had been steering the Stone Roses before they fell apart. ‘I’m a Wheel’ was introduced by Gallagher asking: ‘Anyone here like the blues?’ Squire then led the band into a weary, plodding example of the kind of thing no one ever needs to hear. The sprightlier they were, the better. ‘Raise Your Hands’ and ‘Just Another Rainbow’ (with its bassline borrowed from the Beatles’ ‘Rain’) were fun. Squire is a fantastic guitarist. And an encore of ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ was better than the Stones have been playing it in recent years. But through it all, I wondered about the cult of Liam Gallagher, as 1,500 people chanted his name between songs.

He’s not much of a writer (all the tracks on their record were written by Squire); his voice is a piercing snarl, without nuance; he’s never been what you might call an involved performer (he stands still to sing, his hands behind his back). Yet he remains an idol to so many. Given that his public persona is a walking, talking, punching ego, it’s worth considering the lack of ego required to accept so many limitations; to accept that all you really have to offer is not talent or musicality but simply your presence. The art of Liam Gallagher, after all, comes not from the songs he sings but from being Liam Gallagher. From offering real rock for real men.