As Joss Stone is due on stage, the entire audience are standing outside the building was evacuated due to a fire alert. When the youthful singer appears, an hour later, she bounds into Super Duper Love, shouting: "Are you ready?!"
Fifty years since mainstream white America was wowed by Elvis Presley, a white slicker with the voice of a black Mississippi hillbilly, Stone is pulling off a similar if less revolutionary feat with soul. She has the voice of a 64-year-old black woman who has lived yet, visually, she is a slinky 18-year-old Devon blonde bombshell in unfeasibly teasing dresses.
Critics balk but, for her audience, this is the point. Stone is bright, easy on the eye and saves ill-fated hours poring over gig guides to see if the likes of Fontella Bass or Lorraine Ellison are still touring. The question is whether Stone's music is actually soul. She has the vocal chords but lacks a certain gravitas. Success has come early in her life. She has not slaved on a plantation, been burnt by hot coals like Al Green or battled the different urges of spirituality and sex, as did Marvin Gaye.
However, she has endured an uncomfortable last hour, and you'd expect the fire drama to give events a frisson. She doesn't mention it, until someone shouts it out. "Ah, sorry about that," she says, briskly. "So are you ready?!"
It's a slick, at times plastic, soul show full of seasoned cliches ("You've got it going on", nods to Gaye's orchestration and a call/response routine).
There are, though, songs of depth, so it's weird to hear Stone introduce the more scarring Victim of a Foolish Heart as "kinda chilling", which suggests no great understanding of the material, although she sings it fabulously. Thereafter, the night is up and down. Cringeworthily, Stone holds a lighter aloft and pretends to take photos of the audience. At one point, crowd suggestions cause her to giggle so hysterically she can't start the next song.
However, Right to Be Wrong is sublime, which suggests, given a couple of divorces and a bizarre gardening accident, Stone could be really saying something.
· At Birmingham NIA tonight (0121-780 2225). Then touring.
