Alicia Keys, O2 Dublin, review Alicia Keys is one of those rare pop stars who can roll up their sleeves and play a proper musical instrument to an incredibly high standard. However, rather than placing her on a higher plane than her rivals, her virtuosity has served largely to muddle her identity. Is she a tortured songwriter stooping to the occasional chart-topping flourish? Or an arena entertainer with artistic pretensions above her station? There is enough sparkle and mystery in the New Yorker's latest production to suggest these are questions worth asking, even if there are no clear answers. Certainly, the tensions between the classically trained warbler and the disposable entertainer with record sales in excess of 35 million were impossible to ignore. In hitched trousers, wide-brimmed hat and glittering ruby top, Keys shimmied across a raised platform on the opening number, Karma, but her careful poise lacked the parent-frightening, "girl gone wild" abandon Beyoncé and Rihanna bring to their choreography. Later, stooped over a piano, she delivered the chorus to Unthinkable (I'm Ready) in a brittle wail while a moody dancer sat opposite her and "acted out" the ballad's undertow of melancholy via an impressive repertoire of pouts. At the end, as if to reward the audience for its patience, he flashed his washboard pecs. Keys's painted-on raunch didn't convince and she soon ditched it in favour of her default setting of inexhaustible sincerity. She harked back to a bygone age of follow-your-dreams earnestness on self-help weepy Brand New Me, and doubled down on the sentimentality when she invited the room to "celebrate their lives" by waving mobile phones above their heads. Even the gloopiest boyband would surely blanch at such theatrics. If the banter was often eye-watering, her best songs were irresistible tear-jerkers. Showcasing a voice that cut like diamond, Keys waggled along to the groove-heavy 101 and presented a fervid reading of her blues hymnal Fallin," leading the crowd through the lulling refrain as she pounded her piano with intensity that verged on fury. Surprises were at a premiumm, though she wore an unexpected snarl and bashed a drum kit with visible zeal on Girl On Fire, the keening title track from her newest album. However, the slow-burn menace dissipated as she stepped to the lip of the stage and swayed languidly, not so much dancing as swooning in slow motion. Of course, for the encore she performed her signature smash Empire State of Mind, slipping into a sequined gown and duetting with a video of Jay-Z. Whoever Alicia Keys really is, at moments like these she's majestic.