There is a sensibility running through indie music that manifests itself as swaggering antipathy towards all things conventional, a refusal to recognise music as product, and, if not downright ludditism, at least a wholehearted nonchalance about music-making.

For much of the 1990s, the Californian anti-rockers Pavement seemed to typify this attitude, epitomised by their "talented-but-lazy" frontman and songwriter Stephen Malkmus. As a songwriter now going it alone, Malkmus displays all the hallmarks of a creative force who seems to have lost his security blanket, yet is coming to terms with the fact and is enjoying the freedom.

These contradictions go to the heart of what Malkmus is as a musician - in love with counterculture, but a maker of music that adores all the conventions of American rock and folk music. It's not that he has become derivative; rather, he's no longer interested in anti-rock as a statement; he's no longer interested in displaying his understanding of irony. Yet he is a self-conscious musician - apparently aware of the weakness of his own voice, seeming unsure about his sublime virtuosity as a guitarist.

Even to be virtuoso appears contrary to his instincts, yet while embodying all these contradictions, Malkmus manages to reconcile them.

Keeping with the nonchalance theme, the new backing band, The Jilks, seemed more like friends of Malkmus who came along for the tour because they could pass muster with the instruments. It was Malkmus and drummer John Moen who provided the hustle which took the show into genius territory. Edgy, sometimes a bit sloppy, but always focused, the performance progressed from shaky and loose to downright explosive.

The bulk of the 90-minute set came from Malkmus's self-titled solo record, with the exception of what sounded suspiciously like a Johnny Cash song and, in the encore, what was definitely a Blondie song.

Coming to grips with an untried rock venue, Malkmus took the Ambassador and all who sailed in her on a choppy but rewarding maiden voyage and charted a course through waters at once familiar and new - oops, a terrible clichΘ and self-contradictory to boot, something Stephen Malkmus would truly appreciate.