The madness of Lauryn Hill has become something of an urban legend over the last decade – though it's hard to tell how much this is due to genuinely erratic behaviour and how much to exaggerating the eccentricities of a woman who has shown little interest in playing the industry game or furthering her career since her 1998 magnum opus, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
Tonight, Hill is a mere half an hour late, not the rather implausible three hours reported in the past. She bounds on to stage, a bundle of manic energy; throughout the show, she punches the air, kicks her legs, dabs at her eyes and mutters darkly about the "enormous amount of resistance" she has faced in returning to the stage. Maybe these tics could disturb some, but they seem in keeping with her performance, manifestations of the overdue, pent-up passion that spill over the sides of her songs. On record, Hill used to be a preacher of iron will and fervour, but tonight, she proves that soul is a messy business at heart.
Throughout, the restless Hill bends her catalogue into new shapes, at times abandoning song structure entirely in favour of ad-libbed tangents, elongated vowels and radically altered crunching guitar arrangements – making for an experience that, commendably, is the exact opposite of a mere nostalgic singalong. If Hill's voice is a touch ragged, the feeling she brings to When It Hurts So Bad and To Zion hits home – though, rattling through Superstar's double-time rap, her full control over her instrument is clear. A ferocious Lost Ones boils with anger, while Hill seems wholly consumed with emotion on a cathartic Ex-Factor.
There are moments of levity, too. Laughing, Hill improvises a skit about a near wardrobe malfunction: "Too much baby, no more breasts/ I'm losing my dress." And in the final stretch, her laser focus suddenly kicks in with an electrifying run through her old Fugees hits: an anthemic Fu-Gee-La, a triumphant Ready Or Not, and Killing Me Softly, a spot of calm amid the frenzy that proves the show's emotional core. Hill hits and sustains a breathtaking low note, and as she intones Roberta Flack's lyrics about being moved by a singer's performance, the audience echoes them back – turning Hill herself into the song's subject.
