Jeff Tweedy @ The Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, 31 Jan

'Exactly what do you want me to be?' Jeff Tweedy asked on Handshake Drugs, a song from his band Wilco’s 2004 album A Ghost is Born, and it’s a sentiment he keeps true to tonight, in a special solo show at The Queen's Hall, in support of his recent album Together at Last; a collection of songs from his back catalogue, stripped-back and recorded live. “This place is just small enough for me to care about every single one of you,” he jokes halfway through the night. “I’m going to play all the songs you want me to… if you could leave when you hear a song you like that would help me to know how many more I have to play.”

For a middle-aged man who’s been in the industry since the early nineties, Tweedy remains remarkably affable. Dressed somewhat slouchily, save for the fedora that graces Together at Last’s album cover, there’s very little pretence on show, something that has always been true of Wilco and only becomes more endearing with age. He’s warm, chatty, and wonderfully funny throughout the evening: we’re in remarkably solid hands here and it couldn’t be more clear. There is too, of course, the small matter of the music, and a Tweedy on this kind of form, with 90 minutes to spare and a couple of decades worth of songs to pick from, is perhaps as wholesome an evening as you can muster from the archives of indie rock.

Opening the show with two Wilco classics Via Chicago and I am Trying to Break Your Heart immediately endears the crowd and from there it’s a wonderfully affectionate run-through of both the old and new. Indeed, we’re treated to two brand new songs, one with a lovely impromptu singalong spurred on by Tweedy himself, while we also go back as far as 1993 for a lovely rendition of New Madrid; a track by Tweedy’s pre-Wilco project Uncle Tupelo – released, incidentally, and somewhat remarkably, in the same year that Tweedy last played in Edinburgh; a fact amusingly reminded to him from the back of the room. “You never invited me back!” Tweedy immediately quips, “It’s all your fault!”

Tweedy’s in fine voice throughout, still able to hit those gnarly high notes as well as the dusty whisper that underpins much of the new record, but it’s perhaps his guitar playing that resonates the most. It’s no wonder his skills are somewhat under-appreciated when standing in the shadow of Wilco bandmate Nels Cline, and while he only plays acoustically there are many flashes of brilliance throughout, from the stark, dramatic treat of Bull Black Nova to the playful shredding he interjects in to Laminated Cat, a song from the Loose Fur collaboration that pitched him alongside Jim O’Rourke and Wilco’s Glenn Kotche and makes for a striking highlight of the evening. But, truth to be told, the whole performance is a joy from start to finish; a true master at work.

There’s a rather wonderful clip on 2002’s Sunken Treasure live DVD (and available on YouTube for those of a like-mind) in which Tweedy semi-light-heartedly berated people talking through his performance. “What can I do to be of better service to you?” he asks bitterly. “Tell me what I need to do to get you to listen?” There’s no such trouble tonight, Tweedy even saying that the attentiveness shown to him is somewhat disconcerting.

He goes on to remind us that the last time Wilco played in Scotland they had to stop playing mid-song due to a full-on fist fight breaking out on the balcony. Somehow, and somewhat bizarrely given the all-round pleasantness of the evening, just as Tweedy starts the final song of the night a fight breaks out at the back of the room between a punter and the security team, all manner of profanities screamed in to the surrounding silence. There’s a couple of seconds of stunned silence after the fracas before the room erupts into disbelieving laughter; Tweedy included. “Well,” he says, “I guess the evening finally feels complete!” The truth is, however, it was all that and more, long before such shenanigans.

Don’t leave it so long next time, Jeff. That’s an open invite.