For her last solo show of Australia (and possibly forever if you believe rumours) the so called foul mouthed princess of pop Lily Allen powered through a set of hits at Festival Hall.

The venue proved to be horrible (no sound muffling on the back wall meant that punters on the side were subject to echoing of music and lyrics which proved to be incredibly distracting), the first few songs had sound issues (the mixing of Allen’s vocals into the music was terrible and unless you knew the songs it was extremely difficult to figure out what was being played) and the set was only just over an hour long (which may not be too bad but for punters paying over $90 is pretty shambolic), but other than these issues the night went off extremely well.

Despite the issues outlined above, Allen contradicted her status as foul-mouthed (at least until Fuck You was played) and proved to be quite charming and amusing, evidenced by Allen’s self monologue confusing her self about the meanings of two songs ( Who’d Have Known – which is about falling in love and I Could Say – which isn’t). She proved that despite often getting bad press, she is a very impressive singer (as evidenced in The Littlest Things where she really got to show off her vocal range) with a wide variety of song styles (from the acoustic cover of the Kooks Naive to the jazz feel of He Wasn’t There ).

Confusing for the audience however was the guest of UK rapper (and Allen’s self confessed “best friend”) Professor Green who came on to provide a weird rap ending to the otherwise brilliant reggae tinged Smile, followed up by his rap song Be Good To Green (such a wonderful pun there…) which didn’t really fit in the night and seemed to sit wrong, as did Allen’s cover of Britney Spears’ Womanizer, which didn’t add anything new or different to the song and saw Allen in one of three costume changes of the night – A skin tight leopard print mini dress (allowing her to get her skank on).

Highlights of the night were Allen’s singles. The aforementioned Smile was superb (at least until the rap section), the girl power song Twenty Two (which saw Allen harmonising with her own recorded vocals), The Fear (featuring a great call and response section between Allen and the audience) and Fuck You (Which Allen “dedicated to anyone you hate” and had the audience swaying arms and fingers to the music).

Allen’s final song of the night was the extremely catchy and lyrically clever Not Fair. The sing a long song of the night had the audience dancing, singing and laughing (“now I’m lying in the wet patch in the middle of the bed/I’m feeling really quite hard done by/I spent ages giving head” – possibly the best lyrics ever?), however the song went for far too long, with at least two extended endings leaving the crowd exhausted at all the moshing Allen requested.

All in all, there were some definite problems (mainly technical), however this didn’t seem to bother the crowd with everyone obviously enjoying themselves and leaving pleased. Allen impressed with her vocals and crowd involvement and showed everyone she shouldn’t just be known for her opinion. Though with punters paying $90+ one would expect that if Allen was to return, maybe playing more original songs and for longer would be a good idea.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE SHOW