Ryan Adams, Olympia, Dublin

The one-time boy wonder of alternative country, for the past 11 years Ryan Adams has worked hard at cultivating a reputation for eccentricity and headstrong waywardness.

There have been drug rumours, stand-offs with the media and an endless flow of albums (including an unlikely foray into heavy metal).

He was supposed to have laid his demons to rest on last year’s Ashes and Fire. The mostly acoustic record was the best thing he’d done since 2001’s Gold. The implication was that the 36-year-old, who is married to actress Mandy Moore, had finally achieved inner peace.

However, anyone who comes to the Olympia expecting Adams to be a vision of buttoned-down good sense is in for an upset. Between songs he is unpredictable and rambling.

The concert is largely unplugged. It’s just Adams, alternating between piano and acoustic guitar. If you’re not an uber-fan, the awestruck, super reverential silence can be oppressive — when Adams expresses the wish that the room would stop sniffling and coughing while he sings, it isn’t clear that he’s joking

Still, if you persevere, it is an often transcendent performance, Adams’ stripped down strumming interweaving with his husky, tentative falsetto. Seated at the piano, he re-imagines old favourite ‘The Rescue Blues’ as a bone-bare gospel dirge; a revisiting of his anthem, ‘New York, New York’ presents the song as a guttural blues ballad.

There are moments of real grace and beauty, but Adams’ odd-ball monologuing can be a distraction. You wish he wasn’t so determined to stand in the way of his talent.

Ed Power