Joan Wasser’s intimate, intricate songs have a powerful emotional undertow that goes well with whisky in the post-midnight hour, when even big boys cry.

Such can be their effect on record that when I last saw her play, they seemed almost underpowered in a live setting.

There was none of that this time at her sparkling Concorde gig on Sunday.

Glammed up and looking very un-cop-like with her ace band Joan As Policewoman, she even had someone calling out to turn down the bass.

With a soulful Eternal Flame from her brilliant first album Real Life, a cover of the Hendrix song Fire, which contrived to be raunchier than the original (“Slow down rover, let Joanie take over,” she crooned – you would) and a moving Keeper Of The Flame to round things off, the heat factor was high.

Yet it was in quieter moments when Wasser showed her authority. A textbook exercise in soft power.