John Legend at Somerset House Summer Series review: Dazzling vocal versatility but the show failed to soar

Performing in London for the first time in almost three years, multi-talented soul-pop sophistocrat John Legend transformed the Somerset House courtyard into a giant cocktail-jazz lounge bar for his Summer Series soirée.

Backed by an old-school big band of sharp-dressed players and sparkly-gowned backing singers, the dapper 43-year-old singer-songwriter made a point of telling the well-heeled crowd how much he had missed us during his long Covid-enforced absence. "You’re my dream come true, London," he gushed. "We’ve been separated for far too long."

But Legend has not been idle during the pandemic, of course. Since his last London visit, he has become a TV talent-show coach on the US version of The Voice, played President Biden’s inauguration party, hosted a 24-date residency in Las Vegas, and released his seventh studio album, Bigger Love.

Indeed, he opened with a stand-out track from the new album, Ooh Laa, a sumptuous candy-floss confection layered with sweet doo-wop harmonies. That was followed in quick succession by detours into silken funk, high-gloss dance-pop and brassy, gospel-tinged, rap-sprinkled soul. Legend’s reference points may be stubbornly retro, borrowing heavily from R&B titans like Marvin Gaye, Al Green and Stevie Wonder, but his vocal versatility was still dazzling.

That said, for a silver-tongued hunk recently voted ‘sexiest man alive’ by People magazine, Legend’s wide-ranging love songs were oddly low on actual passion. Even the swooshy disco-lite groover PDA (We Just Don’t Care), his cheeky celebration of groping your partner in public, and the Motown-infused toe-tapper More Room, with its vague hints of kinky sex, sounded wholesome to the point of tedium. Legend has suave magnetism in abundance, but even his rudest songs are more M&S than S&M.

This evening also included a spoken-word summary of Legend’s career so far, peppered with short bursts from his early collaborations with Lauryn Hill, Kanye West, Jay-Z, and West London’s own Estelle. "This is the name-dropping section of the show," he quipped, "be patient with me." Putting his band on hold for a laidback suite of solo piano numbers, he took a decent stab at Feeling Good, the Anthony Newley composition that Nina Simone famously reworked into a potent civil rights anthem, and Simon and Garfunkel’s folk-pop classic Bridge Over Troubled Water, a soul-soothing secular spiritual which remained a little too tastefully earthbound when it should have soared heavenwards.

After milking every last melismatic, Stevie Wonder-ish warble from his 2004 breakthrough hit Ordinary People, Legend saved his big, sparkly, show-stopping romantic ballad All of Me for the encore. It sounded as shamelessly soppy and banal as Coldplay on a bad day, but the singer’s natural warmth and gold-plated charisma somehow made it feel profound and triumphant. This is not really work for a 24-carat smoothie like Legend, it’s just the power to charm.