Ideally, one should see Daniel Johnston in a place like a retro, dull-colored living room – somewhere safe to let go of ego and allow for open weeping. Chelsea's 700-capacity Highline Ballroom doesn't exactly come to mind as one of those places, and yet Johnston has held two sold-out shows there in the last nine months alone.

At forty-seven years old -- nearly three decades since beginning his romance with tape-deck recording -- Johnston stood before a hipster-chic crowd in an oversized red tee-shirt and reaffirmed his role as the gatekeeper of the nine-year-old in all of us.

He hastily struck up a false start on his headless, oak guitar before playing a twangy opener "Mean Girls Give Pleasure." Twice more he performed solo before being joined onstage by Brett Hartenbach, who wielded his own full-bodied acoustic guitar. For four songs, Hartenbach channeled the songwriter's rhythm with an added pluck. Johnston, meanwhile, sang closed-eyed with a stranglehold on the mic stand – noticeably nervous, yet somehow perseverant.

As has become the norm on this tour, Johnston took a short break before returning as a frontman backed by the night's opening act, Spanish Prisoners.

Convenience seems to be the driving reason behind these one-off backings (Johnston said it himself, the songs are easy to learn). But the band needed badly to re-imagine and do justice to the songs pouring out of Johnston's jumpy hands, and failed.

It was an absolute pleasure to hear Johnston belt "Speeding Motorcycle" – made even more enchanting by gear-shaped lights – and to invoke John Lennon on a cover of "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away." But it was a pity to have to endure an aesthetically unsound quartet, which tainted nearly every song. Apparently, Clavia hasn't found a way to pre-set "grace" into a keyboard.

In a one-song encore, Johnston came back and sang "True Love Will Find You in the End." It wasn't catharsis, but it was probably the most endearingly positive thing felt by anybody in New York all week.