Vic Chesnutt's career gets ever more surreal. Partially paralysed in an accident when he was 19, he has defied his disability to produce a substantial body of work. His fans include Michael Stipe and Madonna; Beach Boys lyricist Van Dyke Parks appears on his new album. Yet here is Chesnutt, playing to a handful of devotees in a remote boozer that has managed to spell his name "Chestnut" on the posters.

"Welcome back, Vic," comes a shout from the darkness. "I always wanted to come back," he smiles. "Everywhere I go people say what a great gig Oldham was ... even in Antarctica."

Promoting his 10th album, Ghetto Bells, which again juggles bleakness and beauty, Chesnutt is in playful mood. He tells us that the album's right hook of an opener, Virginia, was inspired by Robert E Lee, an old southern slave-driver who "drove people mad" to keep hold of his land. "Fuck you, Robert E Lee!" cries the singer-guitarist gleefully. His female band - including wife Tina - look on warmly, but are plainly as unsure as anyone about what will happen next. With a monochrome film of him playing above his head, giving him the eerie look of a Robert Johnson, Chesnutt gives full rein to his sardonic wit. Actual Quote from an Actual Fan begins "I'm a little drunk, but I really like your music", and gets more vicious from there, but the banter with these fans drips with affection.

It's hard to square this chirpy Chesnutt with his more harrowing material, but disruptive noise from a distant billiard table exposes his brittle moods.

Vesuvius collapses: "I can't play that song tonight." Instead he launches into Fa-La-La's dark landscapes about leaving hospital but not wanting to go home. As he closes with Dodge, spitting out the line "It's time to get the fuck out of Dodge", it seems Oldham may have outstayed its welcome.