American singer-songwriter Chris Carrabba, frontman of Dashboard Confessional, is used to playing much bigger shows than this. With a string of multi-platinum-selling albums to their credit in the US, the college-rock/indie outfit routinely entertain vast arenas. But their charismatic leader has opted to play a short tour of solo acoustic dates in support of the band's new, low-key album, The Shade of Poison Trees.

Carrabba specialises in heartfelt songs that have seen him labelled the poster boy of the US emo scene, but now that he has moved into his 30s, such emotional insecurities appear well behind him. Toned and confident in a checked shirt and quiff, this indie-rock James Dean grins and banters his way through a relaxed evening.

His mannered insouciance can be at odds with the wracked melodrama of older material such as Screaming Infidelities, an adolescent lament about being dumped that sounds like Weezer fronted by Adrian Mole. But tonight, Carrabba's folksy charm renders such emotional incontinence palatable. It helps that he sugars the pill of his lyrical solipsism with killer melodies: new songs Where There's Gold and Thick As Thieves betray the craft of a sharp and meticulous tunesmith.

Tonight, he can do no wrong, surfing the adulation of a packed crowd heaving with American expats who greet every passing remark with adoring whoops and join in with word-perfect singalongs through the entire set. Carrabba ends with his huge 2004 US hit (and Spider-Man 2 theme), Vindicated, and exits with his acoustic guitar held triumphantly aloft. Soft-focus teenage angst can rarely have been so lucrative.

· At Academy 2, Manchester, tonight. Box office: 0161-275 2930.