Review: Duffy at Vector Arena

Duffy lives her dream at Vector Arena. Photo / Dean Purcell

It's strange how someone so small can wield such power.

Ghandi did it with peaceful persuasion, Stacey Jones has a deft chip kick ... and Aimee Duffy has one of those voices that seems on the verge of breaking but never does.

It also helps that this petite, blue-eyed blonde from the small northern Wales village of Nefyn has always dreamed of being a pop star and throughout the last year the 24-year-old has finally got to live her dream.

She's lucky she's got that voice though because while she is foxy, commanding, and a little naughty sitting up there on that bar stool, Duffy is not yet the whole package.

You wouldn't let a guitarist do a couple of wimpy solos if you were, and she still wanders the stage rather than strutting.

But one suspects that eventually she will be an all-round star if her sweet "Kia ora", in that lovely Welsh lilt, followed by "You have fine wine here" is anything to go by. It proves this lass has got her head screwed on.

And the costume change after only two songs - from refined dinner wear to party dress - oozes star quality.

Since her first album, Rockferry, was released early last year it has sold nearly six million copies world-wide (more than 50,000 in New Zealand alone).

And in the process it transferred the British soul queen crown from Amy Winehouse to Duffy.

Her breakthrough song, Mercy had much to do with that success. That song is a swinging, sing-a-long hit that gets the masses up off their feet for the first time.

But it's songs like Rockferry that reveal the power and range of her explosive pipes.

That song opens the show and starts quietly before escalating into a serenade worthy of a solo at Cardiff Arms Park.

Elsewhere she wends and winds her way through Warwick Avenue, which is nothing but a cabaret swoon until she hits and holds the high note, and Hanging On Too Long, another smouldering belter.

Even though Duffy tends towards the adult contemporary market rather than pure R&B soul status, she is no wallflower as she shows with venomous lines like, "My love for you has turned to hate, When I drop you boy, you'll need another toy" on the sinister Delayed Devotion.

Put it this way, those sparkly crimson stilettos she's wearing would hurt you my boy.

She may not have the slinky and staunch moves yet, but she's sure got the hairdo to pull off the dismissive head shakes that go with what she calls these "songs of love and hate".