Angélique Kidjo at the Fairmont Southampton on Sunday, February 3

If you ever plan on going to an Angélique Kidjo concert and staying seated in your chair, think again. It's not going to happen.

Plenty of people who attended the 47-year-old's frenetic performance at the Fairmont Southampton on Sunday night seemed to have turned up with the intention of watching and enjoying but not taking part. Kidjo was having none of it and rightly so.

It would have been almost an insult not to dance to her so-called "world music" — actually a fantastic fusion of numerous different genres including Afro-pop, jazz, rock and gospel.

Every song, even the less up-tempo ones (of which there weren't many) had the sort of beat that makes your hips start swaying and your feet itch to dance.

She leapt onto the stage just after 8.30 p.m. — a bundle of bright, boundless energy sporting a bottle-blonde crop and a sharp white trouser suit.

And from the first number, 'Papa', she set the tone for an evening of incredible fun.

Kidjo is a small woman but her stage presence was huge as she strutted in front of the audience, her powerful alto resonating around the Mid-Ocean Amphitheatre.

Her dancing was exhilarating to watch — completely uninhibited, defiantly powerful and a mix of styles from all over the world.

Kidjo, originally from Benin but now based in New York, promised the crowd "a little bit of Africa" but her music and movement took us all over the globe, from a cabaret in Paris to a street carnival in Rio to a sleepy calypso club in the Caribbean.

There was even a cover of 'Gimme Shelter' by the Rolling Stones — a band she applauded for acknowledging modern music's African roots.

To describe Kidjo's music as eclectic would be an understatement — but her band were more than up to the challenge.

They moved effortlessly between songs, never letting the pace slacken, with Senegalese percussionist Ibrahima Joho appearing to be — officially — the world's happiest man.

He grinned broadly all night as he pounded a myriad of instruments, his dreadlocks flying.

Roughly six songs in, Kidjo had clearly had enough of looking out into an unmoving auditorium.

She — in a hugely appealing French-toned accent — simply demanded that her fans get to their feet.

Incredibly, they did. As she later talked about music being able to bring together people of all colours, backgrounds and religions, so it was proved on Sunday night. The audience, some a little haltingly at first perhaps, gradually let go of their inhibitions and went with the flow.

Despite her star quality, Kidjo was a curiously un-starry performer.

After flying around the amphitheatre like a whirling dervish, microphone in hand, she urged audience members onto the stage to dance, sharing the limelight with them and seeming to utterly enjoy every second of their pleasure.

A brief flit offstage and then a two-song encore ended the night, proving to all that ten albums down the line and approaching 50, Kidjo has lost none of the youthful exuberance which makes her such a must-see live performer.