“If I could remember everything I’d done, I’d probably kill myself,” quipped Chaka Khan. Acerbic stage patter like this peppered her headline concert at the Southbank Centre, kicking off this year’s Meltdown festival (curated by Khan) while also marking her 50 years in music. Her set went expectedly heavy on the fan-favourites (‘I Feel For You’, ‘I’m Every Woman’, ‘Ain’t Nobody’), but with welcome, deeper additions from her catalogue including ‘Magic in Your Eyes’, a bluesy ‘I’m a Woman (I’m a Backbone)’, and the Prince-penned ‘I Remember U’ too. It was a production which didn’t skimp: an introductory video featuring homages to Khan from Whitney Houston, Michelle Obama, and Joni Mitchell, a fully decked band including three ferociously talented backing singers, and a four-strong dance troupe (giving Khan a deserved break midway through the set). Khan was incandescent; her voice surges with the same godly power it did back when Rufus hired her back in the early 1970s. Her brassy, wailing highs set the stage alight.

Read my list of the best Chaka Khan songs for Ticketmaster HERE.