Gruff Rhys @ O2 ABC, Glasgow, 5 September

There’s no support tonight, just the unusual sight of the ABC being filled with rows of plastic seating and a school-sized projector screen standing on stage alongside a Spanish guitar. But then this isn’t your typical gig, as Gruff Rhys explains when he arrives on stage shortly before 8.30pm. “Before I start singing, I’m going to play an introductory video. If you’ve watched this you will be alright for the rest of the night.” A short film on the legend of the Welsh prince Madoc follows, which is the basis for Rhys’s American Interior project.

But this is no retelling of a woolly fairytale. Through the next hour and a bit, he shares the story of the late 18th century farmhand John Evans – who travelled in search of a fabled tribe of Welsh-speaking Indians founded by Madoc – via song, pictures and some amusingly droll commentary. “He was only 29, and things couldn’t get much worse. But they did – because he died.” There’s also a felt avatar of Evans himself, who sits alongside Rhys as he sings the plaintive title song, accompanied only by guitar and a few basic vocal effects.

Rhys never loses his audience throughout the show, and the narrative is engaging enough to keep even those previously unfamiliar with American Interior happy. It helps that he employs a wide range of styles in his songs, from Walking into the Wilderness, a self-described power ballad, to the jaunty folk story of 100 Unread Messages. There’s even time in the encore for a few of his other solo works, such as the miniature pop masterpiece that is Sensations in the Dark. Rhys has never been a musician short of ideas, which he has executed with varying degrees of success. But retelling the story of Evans must rank as one of his best.