'Sure hope you mean it, sure hope you love me girl,' Saadiq sings doo-woppishly. Tonight, Saadiq leads a seven-strong outfit that might have been lifted straight out of a 60s soul revue – men in berets, a backing singer in white go-go boots and matching hairband – armed with tunes that all sound like forgotten classics. Wielding his guitar, the exuberant Saadiq bounded most undeferentially around Jagger at the very front of the stage as though to say, 'this is my music, buddy'. Saadiq's last big gig before this tour was leading the band at the Grammies in February, when Mick Jagger performed his Solomon Burke tribute. He is the kind of guy who can get Stevie Wonder out of bed in the dead of night to lay down a track in the studio. Saadiq is not exactly a household name in the UK, but his latest records – last month's Stone Rollin' album, and its predecessor, 2008's The Way I See It – crown a Zelig-like career rich in the pleasures of vintage rhythm and blues.
Raphael Saadiq stands on the edge of the stage, cupping his ear for more applause he shakes hands with the entire front row, twice he even filches someone's mobile phone and fiddles with it, every inch the star. T he sharply dressed man finger-snapping onstage toured with Prince as a teenager, became a pop star in the US in his 20s, produced a handful of classic records in his 30s and is now settling smoothly into his role of urbane soul-pop auteur.
