The moon's huge tonight, a massive golden-brown poppadom hovering over Manchester. Having narrowly avoided a road traffic accident, Team Beard makes for the warmth and splendour of the Deaf Institute. In 'Everything's Getting Older', Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat have created one of the more honest, affecting albums in recent memory, and the opportunity to hear this at close quarters is a chance to huddle closer around the flame of humanity it offers in a land growing cold and dark.

The bar has a plethora of exotic beers on offer, but I decide to adhere to midweek austerity measures and opt for a Guinness, while named driver Honch must abide with cola, which, to add insult to injury, the barman embellishes with a straw as if the poor lad is a 12-year-old. Between songs, special guest RM Hubbert chats to the frightfully civil audience about personal tragedy, curry and the dangers of getting tattoos of your partner's name. The small classical guitar he wields is like a toothpick in his huge hands, but he manages to coax delicate, spidery patterns and mesmeric sweeps and drones from it. He incorporates a host of styles, from flamenco to folk and post-rock while maintaining a consistent feel. My thoughts fizz like the settling dark strata in the Guinness, semi-hypnotised and admittedly a little sad.

“I've just been on the phone to my bank and they said I'm spending too much money...I thought they'd be well into that sortae thing.” There's not much to separate the Aidan Moffat inside the songs from the one outside the songs, so the night is a sustained story, like befriending a really interesting fellow in the pub. Biting witticisms lead into fragile ballads such as 'Let's Stop Here'. He's the Lothario, the bastard, the raconteur, the pisshead, the philosopher and the little boy lost. Bill Wells' sympathetic keyboard tickles mirror and adorn our narrator's mood in the songs. 'Glasgow Jubilee' is a Scots 'Regulate', the throbbing funk riff a perfect score for sordid tales of honesty easily sold for a cheap thrill. Aidan gleefully guides us through these webs of deceit, a metropolitan David Attenborough. Throughout the gig, from existential elegies to domestic jazz-noir, he interacts with a trusty cymbal like a human companion; a gentle brush, a playful tap, a prolonged shake. There is also steadfast backing from stand-up bass, trumpet, strings and percussion when a little more drama is necessary. A skeletal rhythm clattered out on the music stand leads into the 'The Greatest Story Ever Told', an agnostic tear-jerker that finds wonder in the fundamental scientific thread that runs through every human life. It's as close as we get to a Hollywood moment, and the live drums make it sound more spectacular than the album version. New song 'Man of the Cloth' is more earthy in its observations, painting scenes from the wreckage of a Halloween hangover. As ever, for all the lonely reflection in the story, it is frequently hilarious.

Both tender and acerbic, the warts-and-all realities of life, love and death are laid bare in that sharp, worldly-wise vernacular and husky lilt which effortlessly grabs your attention and holds it. Like the best bohemian narrators, he sees that the petty details and daily minutiae of wallpaper, pint glasses, small talk and human detritus are full of suggestion. His world is never airbrushed, sanitised or made showbiz; it is all the more wondrous for it. As the mirrorball shimmers to signal the end of 'And So We Must Rest', the whole room has been duly serenaded and had its pants charmed off.

The poppadom moon has been gobbled up by hungry clouds which now toss their contents onto the garden path as I return home, the damp squall clinging to exposed skin.  Inside, though, I'm warm as toast.