The great Nashville troubadour Todd Snider headlined Bowery Ballroom Thursday night, a rare semiseated show at the venue. He performed solo and, as is his wont, shoeless. I find staring at a man’s bare feet to be repugnant, but otherwise was enthralled with the performance. This is nothing new: Snider has been on a serious roll since 2004’s East Nashville Skyline, and it extends through his new The Excitement Plan. (Click here for Snider’s TONY rendition of the album’s leadoff track, “Slim Chance,” performed at Shake Shack.) He’s even better onstage, where his songs bleed into patter and vice versa—a working man’s Jonathan Richman.

Snider’s crowd was appreciative and rowdy, a strange amalgamation of the kind of folks one usually doesn’t encounter at Bowery Ballroom. A number of fans were older than Snider; many seemed to have driven in from outside the city. His cult’s cross section was the mirror opposite of an indie-rock concert, with its slip of a spectrum dominated by privileged young people walking in careful lockstep. Snider is empathetic by nature, frequently narrating from the perspective of the downtrodden. His crowd fuels this talent and forces the musician to write songs that are broad in scope and persuasive—two notions that have all but disappeared from the work of his trendier contemporaries. His music becomes bigger than his cult, held rapt by this modern-day Guthrie disguised as a shoeless fool.