Despite their celebrated performance 40 years ago at Woodstock, you can see why Crosby Stills & Nash are not such a big draw at today’s festivals compared with their semi-detached bandmate Neil Young. Where Young can crank up the volume and paint his musical pictures with enormous brushstrokes, Crosby Stills & Nash have stuck with a delicate, laid-back approach, as evidenced by their post-Glastonbury show at the Albert Hall.

They arrived in a gentle swirl of fuzzy grey hair and good vibes, and stood around on the carpeted stage for several minutes soaking up the love. They began with Helplessly Hoping, accompanied only by their own acoustic guitars, at a volume that was soft even by folk standards, as their voices blended to create the perfectly mellifluous three-part harmonies for which they are justly renowned.

“We’re going to take some chances and play some songs that we like that were written by friends,” a barefooted Graham Nash announced. A string of workmanlike covers ensued, including the Jagger/Richards hit Ruby Tuesday, James Taylor’s You Can Close Your Eyes, Tim Hardin’s Reason to Believe and Bob Dylan’s Girl from the North Country, none of which sounded as if the band were living unduly dangerously. A version of the Grateful Dead’s song Uncle John’s Band, dedicated to Jerry Garcia, introduced a livelier, more syncopated feel, and by this time they had been joined by a full backing band that included David Crosby’s son, James Raymond, on keyboards.

Returning after the interval they struck out more purposefully with the old favourites Marrakesh Express and Long Time Gone. “We all have different jobs in this group,” Crosby explained. “Stills writes fantastic rock’n’roll songs, Nash writes the anthems, and my job is to come up with the weird s***.” To demonstrate his point, Crosby led the way through an extended version of Déjà Vu, which found the ensemble venturing into unlikely prog-rock and even jazz territory with a string of improvised keyboard, bass and guitar solos of varying length and unpredictability.

Having explored these horizons, Crosby steered them back to terra firma with Almost Cut My Hair, a comparatively raucous song that prompted Stephen Stills to indulge in a bout of mild guitar heroics, before taking up the lead vocal reins for the old Buffalo Springfield song For What It’s Worth.

Although lovingly and perfectly executed, the show lacked the fire in the belly that the absent Young unfailingly brings to any performance in which he is involved. Repeated calls for a performance of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes were ignored as they cruised instead into encores of the soft-rock classic Wooden Ships and Teach Your Children before departing amid a flurry of peace signs.

Tour continues: MEN Arena, Manchester, July 10; Edinburgh Castle, July 11

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