A patience-stretching 70 minutes (plus a wretched, interminable instrumental) late, the former Erica Wright need look no further than the mirror should she wonder why her appeal is becoming more selective.

And yet, the only British date of her Out My Mind, Just In Time tour was mostly a triumph.
She looked fantastic. Her poncho and stove-pipe hat ensemble suggested part Isambard Kingdom Brunel, part Andean goatherd and, despite the stultifying heat, she did not shed them for an hour.

Moving with the tiny steps of an empress, she oozed regal charisma, but musically she and her 11-strong band were as bravely eccentric as they were soulful.

Given that she relies on groove rather than actual songs, bar the closing Window Seat and a brief Appletree and that her vocals are limited in an Eartha Kitt kind of way, there was some meandering. But at her best, she nodded to the complexity of Joni Mitchell, the unsettling angular awkwardness of Radiohead and, surprisingly, the raw sex of D’Angelo or Marvin Gaye.

With midnight approaching, the boos that had greeted her non-arrival were long-forgotten, although not as long-forgotten as they might have been since her set was hastily truncated and there was no encore opportunity.

Such is the price of maverick talent: for all the people she’s like, there is no one quite like Erykah Badu.