Tonight, I am nervous. Fifteen months on from my last encounter with Regina Spektor – last summer in the nearby Queen Elizabeth Hall – I’m wondering whether any show could top that one, especially in the wake of recent album Begin To Hope, where under-produced beauty was replaced with an easily-marketable pop sheen.

First things first though: tonight marks my first moments in the company of the DiS-tipped Eugene McGuinness. He’s wide-eyed, nervous, quiet, entirely alone on a stage too big for one man, and most definitely not someone you’d have pegged as a forerunner in the anti-folk scene. Until, that is, he launches into ‘High Score’ and unleashes a frantic set of strummed chords, played at hyper-speed live in comparison to the version on his recent debut offering The Early Learnings of…, as his vocal melody and scatty lyricism takes him from the top of his range to the bottom, zig-zagging left to right.

Once he’s settled down, McGuinness is comparable to the fragility of the work of Fionn Regan (particularly ‘Myrtle Parade’), and someone not afraid to use his voice as an instrument that cuts from high to low with surprising ease. If there’s a fault tonight it’s that his almost-painful awkwardness – come the set’s conclusion, he will almost break into a sprint in order to get off the stage – means an appreciative audience is always kept at arm’s length, but that they’re appreciative in the first place means that his mission is accomplished.

This is not the case with Regina Spektor’s set, but the constant desire of all in attendance to observe her every move brings its own problems, as whilst the venue remind us in a highly hilarious manner that flash photography is “dangerous to the artist”, a few of these people are going home with a visual reminder of tonight’s performance no matter what they’re told. And so, faced with constant flashes and clicks, unwelcome reminders that there’s a world outside, the atmosphere never quite reaches the undisturbed level it needs to for that time-suspending magic to happen.

Beginning a cappella and moving swiftly to the piano, breaking mid-set for a couple of songs on an electric guitar propped up nearby, everything is present and correct; the shy banter between songs, the kooky pronunciation, the ‘hits’ from Begin To Hope - unfortunately including the ‘newer’, faster, almost rushed version of ‘Samson’ - each greeted with rapturous applause which Spektor observes with a partially-startled smile. Herself a cheekily-charming concoction of cutesy innocence and foul language, and in possession of a voice best described as Russian-Angelic, Spektor’s butter-wouldn’t-melt appearance proves deceptive – when she’s not spinning tales about life advice from the ‘Ghost of Corporate Futures’ or how tangerines are “so cheap and juicy!”, she’ll often surprise with “someone next door is fucking to one of my songs”, and a similar curse word is uttered instantly and accidentally after her one mistake of the night.

Some old favourites remain in the wake of Begin To Hope; ‘Sailor Song’, where each mention of the word “bitch” is pronounced with such venomous definition that it becomes almost humorous, the ever-popular ‘Us’ and never forgetting the impressive musicianship display of ‘Poor Little Rich Boy’, as she plays piano with one hand, drums to a different rhythm on a nearby chair as the song switches and sings along effortlessly, as if she’s not actually doing anything special at all. It’s qualities like these that single her out tonight as an original talent, and even tonight’s one aforementioned error brought from Spektor a response which, if anything, only made the performance better.

And that's why, even though tonight doesn't ever reach the heart-stopping heights of one year ago, few people will have reason to leave feeling anything other than satisfied - they have, after all, witnessed a couple of outstanding solo acts, one nearing the top of her game and the other still rising. Just leave your cameras at home next time, people.