AT the ripe old age of 29, Amy Macdonald is approaching the tenth anniversary of her music career.

Since her first album, This Is The Life, came out in 2007, she has released two more until earlier this year when, after a five-year break, the fourth record Under Stars arrived.

Wednesday’s sold out gig at the Barbican opened with this new album’s title track, and the singer, inset left, soon showed the half-decade’s gap did not equal a weakening for her impressive and powerful voice.

Support act Newton Faulkner had by this time already charmed and utterly disarmed the audience, and despite a steady stream of late arrivals and popping-to-the-bar disruptions, he debuted a couple of half-written new songs, with occasional interruptions from a distant security guard’s radio.

Closing his set, Newton stunned the crowd with his breathtaking and eclectic “party trick” one-man version of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Back with the main act, Amy MacDonald’s set continued with touches of her new album while still harking back to her early career.

The Youth of Today, a generational anthem written when she was just 15, somehow had an added poignancy in these politically divided days.

Another old favourite – 4th Of July - from the third album Life In A Beautiful Light – took on a new life as a ballad with a completely stripped back acoustic version.

It contrasted with the paradoxically high energy Slow It Down, and the forthcoming single, the even more high energy Automatic, and the enthusiastically received hit This Is The Life.