Guessing which Ryan Adams you're going to get continues to be half the fun of following this temperamental troubadour. The North Carolina thirtysomething has been known to play the electric guitar god, the wisecracking chatterbox, or simply sulk and vanish if he feels unappreciated.

Exploring his albums is an even more dangerous game, with three hit-and-miss affairs in 2005 followed last year by an astonishing 18 online hip hop and punk catastrophes. Anyone who actually sat through tracks including Pizza in the Sky and Dracula Swimtrunks, after being amused for a few seconds, will have been certain that it is about time this prolific songwriter sat down and focused.

That's what he did last night, sitting virtually invisible to the crowd under dim blue lighting. Unable to play guitar due to a recent skateboarding injury, he allowed backing band the Cardinals to sculpt a smooth country sound while he crooned many of the mellower moments on forthcoming ninth solo album proper, Easy Tiger.

It was an introspective, short, subdued set during which he barely spoke. Lines such as "If I could I'd fold myself away like a card table", on barely-there new song Oh My God, Whatever, Etc, indicated the mood of the entire evening.

He could have tried harder to remind people why they loved him in the first place - My Winding Wheel was the only aired song firmly in his list of classics - but heartbroken ballad The Sun Also Sets and gorgeous new single Two sounded like future favourites.

Adams has never stopped writing songs as good as this, but lately they have tended to be surrounded by a lot more first draft sloppiness. His huge talent is always visible, though, however dimly.

People continue to follow because they still believe the next masterpiece might be along any minute.