There’s something about Corinne Bailey Rae which will always be linked with summer.

On a day which started with snow and ended up up in the cavernous cold of The Guildhall that’s probably what we needed. Walking onto the stage with a mug of tea it was good to hear her apologise for the five month wait we’d had to see her.

Bailey Rae still considers herself a rock chick at heart (she has good cause to as she was originally signed to the prodigious heavy metal label Roadrunner Records) and threw in a few covers by Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin because, as she explained, “we think you like to listen to lots of different styles of music”.

Aside from this is was all the favorites from the album with the odd new song. I’d mentioned on the way down how disappointed I’d been to see Alicia Keys. The basic problem was the stage performance and presence didn’t match the record. Not so tonight. Corinne engaged with the audience, explained the background to the songs and was backed by a stella nine piece outfit.

Oroh Angiama was solid but not loud on bass and Sam “Blue” Agard played an amazing set on drums and sported a very cool pork pie hat. In some ways stripped down from the strings numbers like Call Me When You Get This were even more impressive, soulful and reminded me of the great arrangements of Quincy Jones.

So, until you can listen to this gig on BBC 1xtra from midnight on May 26th get a flavour of just how good this band are here and get a little summer in your life.