Gig review: Grace Jones at the Piece Hall, Halifax

The omens aren’t good. During set-up, a billowing black curtain falls early to reveal roadies preparing the stage, Wizard of Oz style. Then when Grace Jones addresses the audience after opening with the art-pop cool ‘Nightclubbing’ it’s to shout, “hello Manchester!”

Such things could fell a lesser star but the Jamaican American singer, model and actor is adept at controlled chaos. “I don’t know where the f*** I am,” she confesses, no apology discernible in her voice.

At 76 she’s lost none of her commanding presence; a striking vision in figure-hugging suit, heels, and a selection of weird and wonderful headdresses (the first of which is a gold skull mask). The icy hauteur of her early career has nonetheless been replaced by something less aloof, whether she’s casually dangling a leg over a metal barrier, draping herself decorously across the floor, or hugging a roadie who helps her climb back on stage.

It’s an idiosyncrasy that’s combined with stream of consciousness patter. “If it stretches, it fits!” her disembodied voice barks, as she stands off-stage being fitted in a new outfit. “Kick some ass with those!” she advises, possibly in contravention of Health & Safety, having thrown a pair of drumsticks into the crowd.

That these theatrics don’t overpower the music says a lot about their timeless quality. Almost as unaged as Jones herself, their contemporary minimalism combines elements of funk, reggae, and post-punk. This takes in the sprechgesang of The Pretenders’ ‘Private Life’, the Christian hymn ‘Amazing Grace’, and the blues of ‘Demolition Guy’.

Sole new track ‘The Key’ – played here for the first time in England – adds little to her catalogue, running with the hackneyed chorus, “We’ve got the key, the fun key.” Yet despite there being a 16-year wait since her last album, people aren’t here for the new.

She closes the set, as she must, with an extended version of ‘Slave To The Rhythm’. In a show that’s relatively low-key – no flash lighting, save the single green beam that illuminates her during Roxy Music’s ‘Love Is The Drug’, and plumes of tickertape that are released during ‘Pull Up To The Bumper’ – it culminates with her hoola-hooping throughout the entire track. Impressively, she doesn’t miss a beat when introducing her band or sashaying across the stage, and she’s still hoolaing when she vanishes from view 10 minutes later.

The track would be a fitting note on which to end the show, being an ode to the transcendent power of music. But after the venue’s lights are switched on she reappears on stage, seemingly spontaneously. “What do you want to hear a capella?” she asks the audience, before delivering rusty half-takes of Edith Piaf’s ‘La Vie En Rose’ and ‘I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango)’.

She leaves the stage for a final time exhorting the audience to, “Don’t behave!” It’s a motto by which she seems to have run her career and which has deservedly sealed her reputation as a captivating, legendary performer.