Ryan Adams live at the Enmore Theatre
Thursday, August 23rd

Ryan Adams is one tetchy motherfucker. You would be too if you were playing your first ever sober tour, having thrown in the towel on your quest to out-do Gram Parsons. But you didn't know that before you went to the show, did you? That's why you yelled for the lights to go on, over and over until he stormed off stage 40 minutes into the set. Awesome.

All was not lost. Even when the house lights went on and everything seemed doomed. The Cardinals came back and hit us up with a truly schizophrenic set representational of the disjointed genre-genius of songwriter Adams: a slew of tracks from the famed Suicide Handbook bootleg (to be released in a rareties box set later in the year) – which as the title suggests, is shit even heavier than the opiate drenched Love Is Hell duo.

From there the band reached back to Gold for a quickened, but no less lovely take on 'Wild Flowers', and a version of 'Mocking Bird' from the well trodden and glorious Cold Roses featured a solo which made Ryan Adam's Black Sabbath t-shirt make perfect, perfect sense. The crowning moment of the show for me was Jacksonville City Nights' 'Dear John' – which in the absence of on record duet partner Norah Jones, was a none-the-less gorgeous death hymn with harmonies provided by the stupidly talented Neal Casal, also on guitar.

So yes, he stormed off the stage ("we're playing two sets. When we come back, perhaps you'll learn how to act.") Yes, he gets the shits with idiots calling things out in the quiet (though none dumb enough to call for 'Summer of '69'), and no, you couldn't see the players for almost the whole night (though the lanterns illuminating the stage looked sweet) – but genius excuses such petulant demands.

While genre darlings come and go with people falling over themselves to declare the next big thing, Ryan Adams will continue (in his wish, as just one of the Cardinals) to make records until he's no longer breathing, and even his cast offs will be better than 90% of anything else around. So next time you see him, if you could shut the fuck up and appreciate the fact you're hearing one of the most talented musicians to every draw breath – whether you can see him or not doesn't matter.