"Are you entertained by deep despair?" the singer asked, squinting at his music stand.

"You're our prophet!" the crowd shouted.

To the uninitiated, Daniel Johnston does not seem like a prophet. And he really doesn't seem like a indie rock hero. A large man with a belly that pushes his T-shirt out, stretching the neckline, Johnston is a manic depressive recluse. He's also a songwriting genius who's compiled over 20 albums during his bipolar career. His childlike singing wanders off-key at times. As he recites his rhymes, his tongue flicks in and out, and his arms shake with passion, fists clenched. If his lyrics weren't so smart, you might think him a little retarded.

But he's not retarded, just a little crazy and a lot lonely. Obsessed with unrequited love, Johnston hits a place in the heart where few dare to tread. "Hold me like a mother would, like I always knew somebody should," he sings, the melancholy before an upbeat chorus: "This is life/ And everything's all right/ Livin' livin' livin' livin' livin'." And who can dispute that "Love will wash your brain/ Hug you like a ghost/ It really is the most"?

Thanks in part to the 2006 biographical film The Devil and Daniel Johnston, he's gotten enough of a following to play at the House of Blues. After a solo set on both guitar and keyboard, he was then joined by local rockers Big Blue Marble. Before the show, he asked them to make a playlist of their favorite songs of his, and together they played "Casper," "Speeding Motorcycle," and "Love Not Dead." With five strings, including a lapsteel and a violin, along with piano and drums, Big Blue did both the gentle folky thing and the balls-out rocker thing with Johnston.

According to my sources, Johnston looked better than he had in quite some time, smiling occasionally and even coming out for an encore. The meds must be working. "True love will find you in the end," he sang before bidding us farewell.

The whole performance was a little over an hour, but what an hour it was. Afterward, we fans tried to hang out on the dance floor, basking in the post-rock vibe, but the ever-corporate HOB sent its minions to literally sweep us out into the night. And so goes life in America, where even a deep-down genuine weirdo can bust into the corporate music world by singing about Casper, the friendly ghost.