When I last saw Newton Faulkner at one of the summer festivals, he seemed a potential cheerleader for intelligent acoustic songwriting, with the capacity to become an avatar of cheery hippy strumming.

Which makes his disintegration into the kind of mewing goon he now resembles all the more grating, like watching a romance which once sparked morph into the despair of old failures, a determination never to get hoodwinked again the only lingering feeling.

Faulkner comes swathed in the cunning disguise of ginger dreadlocks, which was probably the major label clincher. As grimy and lovably enthusiastic as any wide-eyed gap year backpacker you could expect to find guzzling a vegan breakfast in North Laine, his endearing humility just about redeems the mind-blowing tweeness of his catalogue.

For all his earthy vocals and innovative guitar-picking, he has absolutely nothing of consequence to say, never smugger than on hit Dream Catch Me, a theme tune for taking the kids to school in the 4x4.

It's hard not to love his mitigating lack of awareness at quite how gormless he has become, but there's always the unnerving feeling that this is part of the trick.

The façade started to slip towards the end as he attempted to prove his wackiness with a truly appalling cover of Bohemian Rhapsody. Only a radical return to his roots can save him from becoming a crusty Jack Johnson now.