One string was badly out. He retuned it after the first song, but to my ears the rest still weren't in particularly good tune, although it was tolerable.

I was surprised he didn't stop to retune, it would have been better than carrying on. Of course it was on live radio and TV, but a few seconds wouldn't have made a difference to the programme. It also seemed to affect his vocals on the first song, where he was doing something very weird.

Compared with the other performances it was definitely the low spot of the evening. With an audience of folkies, I would guess that a good percentage of them (even excluding the other award nominees) could have pulled off at least as good a performance. However, he's had a long and successful career, so I guess this was just an off night. It was very unfortunate that, having just picked up a lifetime achievement award, he couldn't deliver a performance worthy of it. That's live music for you.