James Arthur certainly can’t be accused of following the typical career path of an X Factor star. After winning the show in 2012, and producing a mega-hit in Impossible, his subsequent public meltdown included the release of a homophobic diss track, being dropped by his record company, issues with drink and drugs, and becoming the victim of a glass attack in Redcar. However, after his mea culpa and a period of reflection, his devoted – mostly female – fanbase do not appear to have wavered. Tonight, they greet him with massed screaming. Arthur’s imminent third album, You, positions the chastened Middlesbrough-born former foster-care child and teenage indie kid as a big-lunged, retro-soul trouble man.

He references it here, in raps about mental health, but otherwise the show takes few chances, leaning on brash pop production and arena rock cliche. “Let me see those hands”; Manchester are “the best crowd ever”, and so on. But the 31-year-old is refreshingly unfiltered and, while his mouth has got him into trouble before and perhaps will again, his unfettered humanity is rather endearing. He explains that people will know his album title “from these big fuckin’ letters behind me” – the ones that spell out Y-O-U. He talks about the album’s duet with Adam Lazzara, singer of emo types Taking Back Sunday, “my favourite band of all time. Has anyone heard of them? Four people?” He dedicates Recovery to “anyone that’s ever been through a pile of shit in their life”.

His new songs are dark but optimistic. In Finally Feel Good, he sings “putting enough cigarettes on my bed, only friends gather up in my head”, but is visibly cheered by the crowd singalongs that greet the new songs – especially the big-chorused Naked – as well the older ones. A daft, likable bear of a man, he roams the stage touching his heart and profusely thanking people during Impossible, “the song that changed my life”. It’s hard to begrudge him another chance.

• At Bonus Arena, Hull, 11 October (sold out). Then touring.