Review by Tina Hart

If there could be such a thing, Paloma Faith is like the beautiful, talented love child of Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga but apparently well-behaved yet cheeky, and theatrically fashionable but without distracting you from the good stuff. Voice. Tunes. As Usher would say, ‘OMG’.

The round roof of the Roundhouse nearly blew off as she made her entrance and delivered energetic debut single Stone Cold Sober to rapturous applause. With Paloma’s characteristic strange but sexy style, last night she rocked a wiley afro, was bejewelled from her face to white leotard and suspenders and ridiculously high shoes, and had a monochrome set with huge white balloons which she attached to herself during the show.

Pretty much everyone was dancing to all the soulful uptempo tunes, including a funkified remix of album title track Do You Want the Truth Or Something Beautiful?, Luv Ya and the infectious Upside Down.

Pretty much everyone was singing to powerful cover versions of Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime and At Last by one of Paloma’s main musical influences, blues legend Etta James.

At the other end of the emotional spectrum, I had to try hard not to cry as the heart-rending lyrics unfolded on My Legs are Weak, and I could see Paloma welling up too.

She’s clearly at ease on the stage which makes it all the more enjoyable as she chatted to the audience like old friends ‘If I could have this in my house, I would’.

Wrapping up the evening was the haunting tale that is New York, an epic song about the city that ‘took his heart away’ and ‘poisoned his sweet mind’, sang with the conviction of the broken-hearted girl Paloma used to be and accompanied by the audience singing along to the chorus.

Paloma is a multi-talented Diva-ette, having written or co-written all the songs on her album, an unfaltering, eye-catching and engaging performer, and undoubtedly a wonderful, strong singer. This little lady is a true popstar and I hope that in this latter part of 2010 she gets the massive recognition she deserves like her counterparts before her. If the re-release of New York doesn’t make top ten, I will eat my notepad.

New York featuring Ghostface Killah is out 1st August and you can catch Paloma on her nationwide tour in October and November 2010.