Bill Callahan has three new moves - a breaststroke leg kick, a knockkneed shimmy and a grounded squat jump. This is noteworthy because, previously, this most absorbed and absorbing of American songwriters had no moves at all.

The last time I saw Smog he was headlining the tiny tent at Reading. Red Hot Chilli Peppers were rocking on the main stage, kids were hurling themselves off scaffolding to the funk metal of Pennywise on the other side. You had to perch stage-side and cup your ear to catch a wisp of Smog's wistful parables.

On Monday the folk-country legend faced a hushed hall full of crosslegged fans and, while there was nothing in the new material to rival the spiralling intensity of Blood Flow or the dispassionate beauty of Cold Discovery, each fresh narrative rang through disarmingly clear.

With a voice like splintering wood and a pony-trekking rhythm section he sung of countryside and corpses with breathtaking poetry. This is a man who, on new record A River Ain't Too Much To Love, sees no difference between stumbling across an abandoned well and peering into the abyss of his soul.

So when he scratched a bare foot and thanked us for coming "from the bottom of my heart", it truly meant something.