This was one of those hybrid presentations that was more than just a “personal appearance” but less than a proper show. Madonna popularised the formula, which is designed to milk the maximum promotional benefit from the minimum amount of time actually spent on stage. What happens is this. You set up a “gig” for a world-famous, stadium-selling superstar in a club that holds maybe 1,500 people. You get someone to sponsor it, and someone to film it for TV and someone to put bits of it on the Internet.

You dish out wristbands and free drinks to the media and other assorted tastemakers, and give away any that are left over to competition winners and energetic members of the superstar’s fan club. The superstar then sings about three or four songs from her forthcoming album mixed in with a couple of old favourites.

Christina Aguilera kicked off with Ain’t No Other Man, the first single from her new album, Back to Basics, which will be released on August 14. An old-school, R&B song with razor-sharp horn parts and a fast, funky beat, it was the perfect vehicle for a voice that nowadays seems to combine the earthiness of Chaka Khan with the vivacity of Patti LaBelle. While the seven-man band plus two backing singers performed with tremendous flair, attention focused squarely on the antics of the platinum blonde Aguilera, wearing a tightly fitted, black hot pants ensemble, and her three-man, three-woman dance troupe, who cavorted with carefully choreographed abandon on the limited stage space.

The new album has been described as “a modern take on vintage jazz, soul and blues from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s”. The retro feel certainly became more pronounced as Aguilera and the dancers quickly changed into costumes with a naval theme and sang a new number that sounded oddly reminiscent of the old Andrews Sisters hit The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. A storming version of Lady Marmalade ensued, and then Aguilera sat on a stool.

Her ubiquitous power ballad, Beautiful, gave way to a rather stilted encore of another new song, Slow Down Baby — and that was it. As a tightly scripted, half-hour sample of the goods in store it did the job, but lacked the sense of occasion that Madonna would have brought to it.

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