Rollins has barely started this spoken-word performance when he starts talking about David Bowie. A heartfelt tribute morphs into an anecdote, from 1997, when his Rollins Band appeared on the same bill as Bowie at a festival, where the former punk found himself gazing silently at his hero in a foyer, like he was watching a rare bird. “Then he stops, turns and looks right at me. He says, ‘Rollins!’ I’m like, ‘David?!’

Implausibly, it turns out that Bowie was a Rollins fan, and ended up quoting the younger man’s books and even interview quotes back at him over lunch, during which an increasingly incredulous Rollins casually mentioned that he’d love to meet Lou Reed. A few weeks later, he was at home in his solitary “man-hole” when the phone rang. “Henry. It’s Lou Reed. David said you wanted to talk.”

It’s an eyebrow-elevating but lovely story, which is typical of this three-hour marathon, during which Rollins uses the vehicle of an awed fan who got lucky to deliver heartfelt insights, self-deprecating comedy and walloping home truths.

The time flies, because Rollins’s delivery is every bit as honed and intense as when he “waged war” with Black Flag and the Rollins Band. Now 55 – something he seems preoccupied by – and grey, he no longer rampages around the stage, but his wordplay hurtles across countless subjects. He discourses on everything from Los Angeles hairdressers (“They ask, ‘How do you feel about your hair?’ I tell them I want it off my head”) and his cameos in awful movies to the Newcastle cold and how punk rock brought liberation from his racist father.

One minute we’re in Antarctica – among penguin poo (his big concern now is global warming), the next in Lemmy’s small LA apartment. It turns out Rollins knew the late Motörhead singer too, and predictable yarns about the rock band’s unfeasible capacity for alcohol give way to valuable insights on loneliness and freedom.

There are moments where it’s difficult to know where he’s going with something, but not many. If overarching themes emerge, it’s that “big-balled” macho Americans who hate science, socialists and “your Kenyan trickster president” are the bane of humanity and that science about approaching environmental doom is “50 times worse than the reports”.

After explaining why he visits the countries Dubya Bush warned him not to, he pulls everything together with a final thought: that travel and experience of other cultures offers a route to humanity’s salvation. “I meet too many good people to believe that all is lost.”

• Rollins’ Charmingly Obstinate tour visits Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, tonight. Box office: 0161-907 9000. Then touring.