Everyone deserves a second chance, not least Chan Marshall, who as Cat Power managed to put on the all-time, chart-topping, hands-down worst gig I've ever seen, at the Shepherds Bush Empire in 2004.

There, she appeared alone, meandering through a half-thought-out evening of song sketches and lazy improvising, only stopping the torture when music was played over the sound system to force her to leave the stage.

So the simple sight of the 35-year-old singing with a proper band, performing songs that had beginnings, middles and ends, was alone enough to ensure a healthy star rating.

A self-confessed stage fright sufferer, here she slinked about the stage, cigarette clasped between her knuckles, saying little but seeming comfortable.

She even returned for her encore on a bicycle.

After making her name as a sorrowful singer-songwriter with a knack for minimal, haunting piano ballads, Marshall's last album, The Greatest, saw her filling out her sound with classic soul courtesy of Al Green's band.

Here her recent Memphis Rhythm Band was replaced by a new line-up named Dirty Delta Blues, featuring members of Dirty Three and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, who generated a casual, jammed rock feel.

Her soft voice ached quietly on tracks such as Where Is My Love and Living Proof, though the more sensitive material would have been better suited to a theatre or club show, where a significant part of the audience would not have comprised chattering people who couldn't see.

Some startling covers gripped more powerfully, including fairly faithful interpretations of Otis Redding's I've Been Loving You Too Long and Billie Holiday's Don't Explain, and a barely recognisable New York, New York.

At the close, guitarist Judah Bauer called Marshall "the best soul singer in the world today", which was pushing it, but to see the troubled star performing great songs in a professional manner was privilege enough.