D’Angelo, Eventim Apollo - music review

A darkened stage, a preacher’s voice declaiming about “nappy hair” and “new world orders”, and there he was. Backlit, his face hidden under a rebel’s hat, as moody and enigmatic as any trouble man and funk-soul saviour should be.

As that signature falsetto unfurled, and an elite eight-piece band set about playing the swinging, off-kilter grooves that recall everyone from Prince and James Brown to Thelonious Monk, questions about whether D’Angelo could deliver live what he’d achieved with Black Messiah, his brilliant, long-awaited third album, were answered. He could. And did he ever. Before a crowd that hung off his every word, gesture and grin, the Virginia-born preacher’s son gave us an old-school soul revue complete with costume changes, funk jams and hit after inventive hit. A gloriously carnal version of Feel Like Makin’ Love built to fever pitch, with D shrugging off his leather coat to reveal tattooed biceps and a tiny, fallible belly. The languid Really Love, its Spanish-language intro sung by co-writer and backing vocalist Kendra Foster, saw his voice floating over a bouncing bassline by rock elder Pino Palladino.

After a stint on the keys for the loping, heartfelt One Mo’Gin from 2000’s nu-soul triumph Voodoo, D’Angelo was off the stage and down with his people: high-fiving, spreading the love, before being carried aloft on the broad shoulders of three bodyguards, one of them sporting a trilby.