His new album also has some droll songs, but in a group of pristine ballads during Thursday’s concert — including the new ”Working Too Hard” and ”You Were Always There” and an older song, ”Pontiac” — he summoned a sense of nearly unbearable solitude and loss. As on the new album, he then climbed out of the abyss through motion and flirtation, making his way through truckers’ country and eventually to gospel redemption, with the Harlem Gospel Choir joining him onstage