Approximately two minutes in to Tracy Chapman's first song Why? I was disconcerted to find my seat, umbilically attached to a row occupied by excitably bopping girls, was being jerked violently back and forth.

The general effect was that of being incompetently shagged while listening to your favourite album - an experience to which many a fan of ballads could no doubt testify.

And yet Chapman's topical yet timeless proclamation against the nonsensicality of famine, war and domestic violence escaped unscathed, just as second number Baby Can I Hold You (requested by newly-weds "Mandy and Ian") triumphed over the memory of Boyzone's insipid 1998 cover - the reason, one suspects, for the hefty tweenie contingent.

Supposedly as integral to a woman's pre-menstrual arsenal as Primark underwear and a DVD of Dirty Dancing, Chapman's acousticallystrummed soft-rock ballads are in fact made of remarkably sturdy stuff - the topical yet timeless Talkin' 'Bout A Revolution drowned the Mexican waves, while her debut single and biggest hit Fast Car overcame the distractions caused by the tweenie to my right texting a running commentary to her friend ("Fst Cr"? God save us).

As for Chapman herself, the drab jumper and jeans offset by a ready grin and long swinging dreadlocks, her subtle command of the minor-key dynamics of relationships neutralised shouts of "Will you marry me Trac-ee?" ("I'll let you know at the end," she replied, "I wouldn't want you to think I haven't thought about it").

A far more confident performer than her sparse touring history suggests, Chapman's sell-out show owed nothing to fashion and everything to her enduring intelligence and integrity. Slinging on an electric guitar and stepping out of her mid-tempo gait to encore with Nirvana's Teen Spirit, she held the sell-out crowd spellbound with that uniquely warm voice which raises goose bumps like late afternoon sun.

"I got a feeling, feelings don't lie" she sang on best of the new tracks Talk To You. Hearing Chapman's ballads in the always-impersonal atmosphere of the Brighton Centre is rather like getting your sex education in the classroom. But I can't think of anyone better to teach little girls about love.