Joanna Newsom is one of those rare artists who inspire true love.

She doesn’t seem to attract casual admirers, only devoted, serious fans, and the Brighton Dome’s bar was filled early with excited chatter and smiles.

Her earliest, self-released works date from 2002, but it was her debut album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, that catapulted her to global recognition in 2004.

This tour was for her fourth, Divers, which was released just a week ago, and has been hailed as a consolidation of her style and her finest work yet.

Newsom’s distinctive, child-like voice and complex story-telling has remained constant over the years, but with Divers she has tapped into something solid and real: an album about love with no love songs; a style that’s definitively hers whilst being unlike any other recording artists.

Performed live, it was haunting.

The juxtaposition of her earthy, folky music and the grand setting made her seem all the more intriguing and other-worldly, and the new songs, and gigantic harp, created a performance that was entrancing.

Newsom has always been known as a brilliant live performer, and this hadn’t changed with time.

This was an evening that will be remembered for a very long time.

Four stars