"I don't do daytimes," Grace Jones told underlings at a recent photo-shoot. Early evenings must be out of the question, too, as she is - inevitably - fashionably late in starting the first London show of her comeback tour. Yet she knows she is worth the wait, entering by striking a pose, high on her hydraulic platform, as Iggy Pop's "Nightclubbing" begins as booming, low-end, electro-cabaret.
The abrasive denizen of Studio 54 who startled the early 1980s, Jones joins the dots between Josephine Baker, Eartha Kitt and an android. Tracks from 2008's Hurricane , probably her most emotionally revealing album, blend superbly tonight with the pick of her past, largely because her band filters them in a bass-heavy, robo-Jamaican style. "This Is" rumbles like dancehall; "Love to Love Life" is ominous, votive ska; the histrionic "Sunset, Sunrise" a booty-shaking homily. Her singing voice is a soulful bark, with the odd gospel wail.
