There was a time when you couldn't pin down Suzanne Vega or her audience. She seduced would-be singer-songwriters and bedsit miserablists with Marlene on the Wall and wooed an unlikely dance crowd when her a capella Tom's Diner was restructured by club crew DNA. Now, though, her crowd know exactly what they want. "My name is Luka," shrieks the woman near the front.
"That comes near the end," says Vega. Full marks for honesty. But she is in town promoting Retrospective, her third "best of" collection and one that suggests her record company are as bound up with her back catalogue as anybody else. It's a diverting disc and she sticks to it pretty resolutely but, live, has sung some of these songs too often. The untypical, Latin-tinged Calypso is nimble, flirtatious and sensual, although 1987's dated Solitude Standing sounds as though it's more likely to keel over.
However, the advantage of the retrospective mood is that it allows the former Princess of Darkness to unveil an unrecognised talent as a raconteur. She tells how, bizarrely, she was once an Avon lady ("I was in full military-surplus gear: I lasted a week"). She explains that the defiant older woman/younger man scenario of (I'll Never Be) Your Maggie May was, indeed, at least inspired by ageing lothario Rod Stewart ("Look, he was young once"). Most fascinatingly, she reads from an old diary (reworked for the lyrics of In Liverpool) that documents a lost love with a Liverpudlian, who would take her to New York's Central Park and whisper sweet nothings about egg and chips. Mischievously, Vega notes that she is about to play Liverpool.
Perhaps Vega will find new inspiration, because once this Retrospective period is over, she definitely needs to readjust. After all these years, the highlights of her two-hour set are still Marlene on the Wall (fabulous, breathless and evocative), Tom's Diner (dispensed over a slightly cheesy hand-clap) and Luka, the tale of child abuse that is still gently startling after 16 years.
"Suzanne Vega. For playing Luka, you are the best," shrieks the woman. Someone's happy.
· Suzanne Vega plays the Royal Philharmonic, Liverpool (0151-709 3789), tomorrow and Shepherds Bush Empire, London W12 (020-8354 3300), on Monday.
