Did you know that Chaka Khan has her own brand of gourmet chocolate she calls Chakalate? Or that she recently extended a helping hand to the media's favourite punchball, Lindsay Lohan, after they spent some time in the same rehab centre (Chaka for prescribed meds following a foot operation)?

When Kelis first walks onstage in a shimmering blue ball dress, a gigantic mane of black hair falling down her back, gay men all about me in the circle seats spring to life, some veering into “Go girl!” territory, others simply shrieking, and one in the row behind calmly saying to a neighbour, “She is just magnificent.” I'd not realised she was quite such a gay icon but this concert offered definitive proof.

Zara McFarlane’s exquisite synthesis of jazz and nu-soul, an intoxicating proposition on CD, breathes more freely live, we discovered, in last night’s Brighton Festival performance. A recent appearance on Later... with Jools Holland was mentioned discreetly, and has clearly buoyed her confidence, as she gave an utterly engrossing demonstration of why Holland, and before him, Brownswood Recordings’ Gilles Peterson are supporting her.

Josef K: The Only Fun in Town

Before Janelle Monáe even materialises at Brixton’s O2 Academy, her presence is already felt in the stagecraft. Lab-coated, bow-tied techies unsheath the instruments from their black covers, revealing a glimmering monochrome set-up in the centre of a giant white cube reminiscent of the "Q.U.E.E.N." video. Three - count ‘em, three - men see to the polishing of Monáe’s microphone. The build-up is every bit as meticulous as the stunning 90 minute set that’s to follow.

Tonight Birmingham was treated to a guitar fest of epic proportions, as the Japanese, Hawkwind-esque experience that is Bo Ningen hit town. Prior to the main event, we were treated to the boisterous thrash of The Scenes, who finished their set with the flippant yet amusingly named “Anorexia Is Boring”, and the Teenage Fanclub-esque 12-strings of Younghusband. Neither, however, quite prepared the crowd for the ear-lacerating noise and mesmerising groove of the headliners.

A mournful voice sings “even though it hurts, even though it scars, love me when it storms, love me when I fall” over a strummed acoustic guitar which shares the lyrics dolefulness. As the centrepiece of her set last night, Lykke Li’s delivery of her new album I Never Learn’s “Love Me Like I'm Not Made of Stone” asked a lot from the audience at her first London show for three years. With the familiar came the new. With the upbeat came the sorrowful. And lots of it.

Sliding onto the stage of the O2 Arena in a leotard emblazoned with her own mouth and tongue, Miley Cyrus immediately starts bouncing around screaming, “I’m not going down without a fucking fight!”

Robert Cray’s veteran blues band made a compelling case for their unique blend of soul and blues at the Barbican last night. Despite the five Grammys, record sales well into seven figures, and investiture in the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011 at the precocious age of 57, he’s sometimes suspected of watering down the blues tradition. What he’s actually done is preserve the most of the attitudes and atmosphere of traditional blues, while modernising some of the instrumentation and phrasing.

Crazed magnificence, off the cuff improv, pinpoint timing. And that was just MC and trombonist Ashley Slater's on-stage banter. In one of the most hotly anticipated jazz gigs of 2014, the return to the Ronnie Scott's stage for the seminal and utterly singular big band Loose Tubes – almost a quarter of a century after their valedictory residency in September 1990 – surpassed all expectations.