HACKNEY retro soul sister Paloma Faith is at the peak of her success but is she at the peak of her powers?

Saturday's sold-out show affirmed both her strengths and her limitations, in a nutshell that she is a superior performer to rather too much of her own pastiche material.

Mind you, she hampered herself by wilfully neglecting all the hits off her first album and giving pretty scant regard to her second, in favour of promoting this year's A Perfect Contradiction, with ten out of 12 numbers featured, now complemented by four more from next week’s new double-disc edition.

Maybe that is why the album is so named; she loves success – hence the plugs for her merchandise and upcoming upgrade of the album in a two-disc reissue – but she likes to take risks that could undermine it too.

People have been Tweeting about the set-list absentees, she said, but they would be back for next year's arena tour, when she will visit Leeds First Direct Arena on March 21. Call it brave, call it foolhardy, Paloma has faith is her ability to entertain without recourse to her recent past, and she has previous for this. At her Barbican show in February 2013, she said she was already "sick" of the songs off her debut.

It is doubtful her audience would share such an "off with their heads" attitude. ideally, there should be room for both old and new in a set, just as there is in her brassy soul music, and next year's gigs will better affirm that.

The best of Paloma right now is Paloma the showgirl, the vaudeville act who can sing, dance, chat in her self-deprecating, kooky way, and in this instance see off an over-intrusive photographer (NOT from The Press), who was crouching low to film her undies beneath her frilly "meringue" dress that Betty Grable would have adored. Scolded, he slunk away into the night.

Paloma is always fabulous on the visuals, and this show looked great, right down to the flowers that she and her backing singers were wearing in their hair, improvised from a bouquet sent to the dressing room by Fulford Flowers. Paloma was in riotous pink and high heels; the band and the barefooted singers were all in Chelsea blue, the musicians crisp white shirted too, to match the white set with its mezzanine level, walkways and white piano, which Paloma would walk on later. Very Austin Powers, baby.

The more she sang, the more powerful her joyous voice became – drama, funkiness, defiance and fun, rather than tenderness, were her calling cards – and if the middle section was too medium-paced, the new single from The Outsiders deluxe edition was deliciously life affirming.

Only Love Hurt Can Hurt Like This, a typically demonstrative Diane Warren ballad, was the night's show-stopper, before a knockout home run that went from her special York-only rendition of Roy Orbison's Crying, sung half in Spanish and dedicated to her mother in the crowd; through an exhilarating River Deep Mountain High, in honour of her inspiration, Tina Turner; and finally the funk-you riposte of Can't Rely On You.

Paloma Faith ain't perfect and she is a contradiction – a better entertainer than hit maker – but you can't help but enjoy the ride.