Aidan John Moffat

Aidan John Moffat is here to cheer us all up with his songs and poems about fanny and cock and affairs and vodka. His recent solo offering, I Can Hear Your Heart (review), was an excellently dark and rewarding collage, full of erotic regrets and seediness, at all points faultlessly entertaining and disturbing. Live, you'd assume that it would be a dour, difficult and affecting experience, but it's remarkably breezy. Instead of the tape loops and samples that are all over the record, Moffat has only a tiny record player, a maraca and a toy keyboard for support.

He sings, essentially, the same tune for each of his poetic vignettes, allowing the audience to focus on his words. And that they do, laughing slightly too hard for comfort at some of the more poignant lines. Would it be wrong to suggest that they miss the inherent tragedy in singing lines about polyamorous relationships as viewed on Phil & Fern? Moffat declares himself as being far less attractive than anyone in this three-way love fest, and people laugh like he's told a knock-knock joke. Maybe people over-estimate his assuredness.

When ex-Delgado Alun Woodward joins Moffat for renditions of new material, his simple and lovely guitar playing makes such a huge difference that you forget to listen to the lyrics – maybe a joy to be further discovered when the record comes out. There then follows some consciously bizarre cover versions, the most interesting of them being Katie Melua's song about bicycles in Beijing. More than simple novelty, Moffat's accent does the work here by toying with buoyancy of the phrase. Shite music played by indie legends – a new niche?

A short intermission, and Moffat returns alone to deliver a reading of his most controversial work to date. As he explains, it is only controversial because of the words it contains (it details some of the more offensive racial classifications in his native lexicon), and ends up by plainly saying that we should all love each other. The eager audience lap this sentiment up, even though if Bono had said it they'd all say "what an obvious statement, you ridiculous man". Still, Moffat is thankfully nothing like Bono, and therefore finishes his lovely show on a bafflingly upbeat note. He's still angry and confused, but happier than ever to let people enjoy it.