PINK, O2 Arena – Evening Standard, 25 April 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN2JyTx9XNE

“Come hell or high water we were gonna get our asses on this stage,” said Pink, showing scant evidence of the ear and respiratory infection that caused her to ditch Birmingham on Monday. She burst onto the O2 stage in one of the greatest entrances I’ve seen in ages, pinging up from under the floor on bungee ropes, to be caught by three upside-down men near the ceiling.

Most singers employ dancing troupes to distract while they get on with the business of, well, singing. Not the former Alecia Moore, whose dancers rushed to keep up with her in what was the arena pop equivalent of a backpacking holiday in New Zealand.

She span in a giant rotating egg cage, twirled upside down suspended by black ribbons, and during a truly stunning finale, somersaulted all the way to the highest back rows on a remarkable system of wires. How did she manage to sing while constantly breaking the laws of gravity?

She made it look easy, utterly at ease on London’s biggest stage as she signed autographs mid-set, donned a fan’s silly hat and belittled her own abilities. “The more you drink, the better I am,” she said.

And she was very good, with probably the strongest voice of the decade’s crop of pop starlets, a violent rasp that suited the punchy attitude of hits such as U + Ur Hand and Trouble. Her latest album, The Truth About Love, finds her at another commercial peak. Its big hit, minimal ballad Just Give me a Reason, is as catchy as anything she has done.

Low-key covers of James Taylor’s Fire and Rain and Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game showed that she could cope without the gimmicks. But she was at her best when mock-kicking her dancers and dodging explosions, the bareback star of her personal circus.