Joanna Newsom

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Roy Harper, the veteran singer-songwriter who counts Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin amongst his peers, is wrapping up his hastily soundchecked, stop-start support slot tonight. Roy tells us he came out of retirement to be here.

"I'm looking forward to this more," he deadpans as he offers up his admiration for Joanna Newsom's arrival. "One of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, performing some of the best music you're likely to hear on this planet."

Few would disagree with the statement. With the sunken stage of festival hall glowing deep Tory blue (the lighting ominously changed as the government did) Joanna Newsom emerged in a flowing, latte coloured dress to howls and wolf whistles aplenty.

Much has been made of the vocal chord nodes she had last year - she was forbidden to speak for two months - but her recovered voice is certainly noticeable this evening. Where once it was squawky and habitually volatile, it's now purer, more consistent; near faultless, in fact.

The expansive new triple LP Have One On Me gets due prominence this evening. Much like the initial experience of listening on record, the performance is a mixture of epic proportion, flourishing to life with the delicate '81.

Have One On Me introduces her backing band, criss-crossing the acoustic spectrum of the Royal Festival Hall sublimely, with violins, horns, banjos and percussion, weaving interspersing sounds which compliment Newsom's lead. Good Intentions Paving Company rides along with a wonderful tippy-tappy flow. The delivery of mellon collie ballad Occident is simply stunning, whilst the encore Baby Birch fills the hall alluringly.

There are moments however, when half way through a song which is 12 minutes long you wonder if if shaving a few minutes off would inhibit the natural lull which accompanies some of the more extended numbers on the new album.

During a pause for Newsom to tune her harp for Kingfisher, questions where thrown out to the floor which backfired on Newsom and her band and seemed to distract from what had otherwise been a fairly focused atmosphere peppered with the odd joke. "Who do you think should be Chancellor of the Exchequer?!" ... "Have you seen Iron Man 2?!" ... "Will you marry me?" came the moronic shouts.

Mildly annoying as this may have been, the current Joanna Newsom live experience is still no less majestic and magnetic - whatever she chooses to play - since there are more than enough rich pickings to choose from. And with such a vast amount of new material to draw on it's not surprising Ys was ignored and not missed.