A male British rapper who is unafraid to show tenderness and vulnerability is not a particularly new phenomenon: Dave, Stormzy, Headie One and Kano have all walked this path in recent times. None, however, has made emotional fragility his USP to quite the same extent as Loyle Carner, who writes about his children, his masculine role models, mental health, race and inherited trauma in an unthreatening sing-song style which has made him both a pop star and a bit of a poster boy for Feeling Things. His tour is named after his fourth and most recent album, hopefully!.

To his credit, he has put his money where his rhymes are. Carner has preached about knife crime from the stage at Glastonbury. He was talking about his ADHD before it became the topic du jour for celebrity over-sharers. He even set up a cookery training programme, Chilli Con Carner, for kids struggling in school. Something of a gourmand, he has songs titled ‘Carluccio’ and ‘Ottolenghi’. The latter was aired in Glasgow and, like much of Carner’s output, was a pleasant enough offering but lacked bite. His is not what you might call al dente music.

Hope isn’t a bad calling card in these times, but no amount of good intentions counts for a hill of refried beans when it comes to the cut and thrust of live performance.

On the plus side, playing the last of three consecutive nights in Glasgow, Carner was an entirely engaging presence – likeable, chatty and warm (very warm, probably, in that hoodie). He also had excellent backup. The live rap experience has evolved light years since the days when a typical PA set up was two turntables, a booming backing track and three or four microphones. Nowadays, a slick live band, a sophisticated blend of musical styles and elaborate staging is the order of the day.

Carner had the first two, at least. The switch in styles, tone and textures between ‘Damselfly’ and ‘horcrux’ illustrated the range of his excellent group of musicians. The former spun delicately on a spare horn figure and a pretty, fragile guitar line, over which Carner versified in typically dreamy style. The latter hit hard, driven by whipcrack drum’n’bass rhythms and percussive piano chords. Here, the vocals came fast and flowing, as they did later on ‘Speed Of Plight’ and ‘Yesterday’.

If these tracks emitted a thrilling sense of propulsion that much of the rest of the show lacked, it was perhaps hardly a surprise. Carner tends to favour a more languid style, conversational and easy on the ear. An alumni of the Brit School, his background in acting was evident in songs that often felt closer to dramatic monologues. He cites Langston Hughes and Benjamin Zephaniah among his influences (he has sampled the latter), but often the effect felt closer to well-intentioned but fairly routine performance poetry. His simple rhyme schemes are accessible but repetitive, and not always terribly profound or distinctive.

‘horcrux’ aside, most of the energy was generated through Carner’s older material. The loping groove of ‘Ain’t Nothing Changed’, with its slushy saxophone and jazz guitar, reached back to Arrested Development’s conscious, upbeat hip-hop. ‘Speed Of Plight’ was fiery and direct. ‘Nobody Knows (Ladas Road)’ sampled Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth Choir For Christ’s track of the same name, and the sound of their massed gospel voices soaring over funky piano and Carner’s torrential rhythms made for a genuinely wonderful noise.

In contrast, he played only a handful of songs from his latest album, and those he did perform turned some of its positives into deficiencies. What works on the record – a dreamy, gossamer, internalised quality that builds intimacy and atmosphere with repeated listens – didn’t always work in the flesh. The opening pairing of ‘all i need’ and ‘in my mind’ set the scene. Minimal and melancholic, they were subdued and lacked variety, musically, vocally and thematically.

Even when Carner sang rather than spoke, as on ‘lyin’’, the sweetly exposed quality of his voice could not rescue the song from its innate tedium. The audience loved it, but then they loved everything. Carner is a very loveable guy. To return to the culinary lexicon, however, this was a show that simmered rather than really cooked.