Party in the house: Angélique Kidjo gets Cultural Centre crowd on their feet

Nobody could accuse Angélique Kidjo of not knowing how to work a crowd. For her Hong Kong debut she had most of those present on their feet for much of the show, and many of them were dancing in the aisles.

Not content with that, for the last song – before she came back for two encores – she invited as many as could fit there up on to the stage.

This was all well outside the control of some fairly stony-faced Cultural Centre staff, who made a few half-hearted attempts to enforce the “no unauthorised photography, audio or video recordings” rule before everything got hopelessly out of hand.

Good luck with that. This was a party, it was of course music to dance to, and at least some of it is already up on YouTube.

There was a strong African turnout, and some members of the audience may have understood the several African languages in which the songs were sung. Most wouldn’t have had a clue, but it hardly mattered.

“I’m not afraid to say what I think,” Kidjo announced, needlessly, and as is her wont provided a few good-humoured but emphatic agitprop speeches to illuminate the messages in those lyrics she was particularly keen to get across.