Virgin 40: Emeli Sandé, Koko - music review

Virgin Records is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a run of Camden shows that kicked off with the UK’s biggest-selling album artist of the past two years.

The label launched by Richard Branson is a 40-year-old Virgin with plenty of history including a leading role in prog-rock (Tubular Bells), punk (Sex Pistols) and dance music (Daft Punk). It was also responsible for the Spice Girls.

Virgin has a growing stable of urban acts, too, and this venue filled up for an early support slot from Watford producer Naughty Boy and his rotating squad of singers and rappers. Emeli Sandé's collaborator has become a chart-topper himself and he showed no fear in reworking Daft Punk's Get Lucky into a slinky soul tune.

Professor Green relied more on nostalgia with samples from INXS and Beats International, though the Hackney rapper did bring things up to date with a loved-up lyrical reference to new wife Millie Manderson (née Mackintosh) from Made in Chelsea.

Scottish sensation Sandé was equally gleeful about her return to the intimate venue where I witnessed her burgeoning talent two years ago. She sang the same resplendent soul but with the added confidence that two million debut album sales can bring. "It's incredible, it's amazing," she gushed.

Sandé’s success meant we had to peer through a throng of phones filming her exuberant rendition of Heaven, while fans attempted to sing along to her soaring vocal on My Kind of Love.

She was at her most formidable on Next to Me, grinning and holding her arms aloft as the whooping chorus was sung back at her.

The downside was this was a flying visit without an encore. Perhaps, though, after all that exposure from singing at the Olympics ceremonies it was a canny move by Sandé to leave us wanting more at this birthday bash.