The Beatles had it sussed. Just because you could play gigs didn’t mean you should. The tricky relationship between pop stardom and live performance exists to this day, not so much resulting in frustration for the artist but more a shortage of change for the audience. So common has the summer run of big budget, high on spectacle but low on heart experience become that to come across a major mainstream star who delivers in person is a bit of a shock. Ladies and gentlemen….Raye.

It surely helps that she’s not new to all this. The tour in support of My 21st Century Blues has been going on for two years now, graduating from the clubs of Europe to wide open spaces such as these. That step by step process is crucial, ensuring that what feels like a final victory lap in celebration of a career resurrected delivers on all fronts. The orchestral shows of 2023 have had a clear influence and the sound is rooted in the jazz, soul and blues that made her rather than the dance pop that first introduced her.

Much of the album was made for this big band approach but, as there was always more to Raye when she was stuck in her major label hell, so she isn‘t just another singer with a fantastic record collection. She admits that she longs to drop ‘Ice Cream Man’ from the set but feels that need to come back to it and the dark tale of industry abuse feels even more relevant in light of Victoria Canal’s revelations.

She follows it with new song ‘I Know You’re Hurting’, which takes the emotion to a grander scale. If that song (alongside ‘Where The Hell is My Husband?’) suggests a direction album number two might take, last year’s ‘Genesis’ offers an alternative option. Tonight we only get the hip-hop bounce of the middle section (missing the socio-political jazz final third) but it’s still a tantalising hint that everything is up for grabs.

Wherever that is, you can be guaranteed that she’ll do it with warmth and style. If Raye’s enthusiasm for touring is starting to wane you’d never know it, the radiance of her personality lighting up the night. She engages in an evening long dialogue with 73 year old audience member Mary and spends five minutes trying to pick out and remember the names of three girls celebrating their birthdays.

The relationship with her past musical output isn’t too sour to stop collaborations with David Guetta, Jonas Blue and Jax Jones appearing late in the night and, while they do play well with the crowd, they sound notably one-dimensional in light of what was to follow. That service is resumed by the giant end of ‘Black Mascara’ and the final one-two knockout punch of ‘Prada’ and ‘Escapism’. There’s just time to charmingly thank her band for the eighth time as well as the security and bar staff, then she’s gone. Who knows for how long but it’ll be worth the wait.