Hackney Empire, London
Rarely can the apocalypse have been heralded with such unbridled glee as it is by Will Oldham. He's in the middle of a sprightly country lollop called Easy Does It, when suddenly he begins ad-libbing wildly: the world will end in December 2012, and then he won't have to worry any more about having whiskey in his moustache, because he will have no moustache, "and neither will any of you ladies".
An obsession with death, a bewildering sense of humour, and an eye for the ladies: that just about sums up Oldham's eccentric alter ego, Bonnie Prince Billy. More than two decades into his career, his 1999 song I See a Darkness remains the biggest impression Oldham has made on the wider world, and that's only because it was covered by Johnny Cash. He plays it tonight, transforming it into urgent gospel, shimmering with light.
Oldham has reached the stage where he can do as he pleases: he is here to promote his latest album, Wolfroy Goes to Town, yet he's more than halfway through the set before he remembers to play any songs from it. No Match quietly churns, while Quails and Dumplings is the kind of forthright social-protest song prized by the folk anthologists of Broadside magazine in the 1960s. What catches your ear is the idiosyncratic phrasing: "Fuck birds in the bush, let's take them in the hand."
There has always been a butter-wouldn't-melt quality to Oldham: he can be violent, filthy, yet retain an air of perfect innocence. With his tufty hair and pixie leaps, he's not quite the image of a sex machine, so it's unnerving when, carried away by Merciless and Great, he grabs at his crotch. It makes too literal what he so exquisitely, subtly, insinuates with words.