At the Vogue Theatre on Thursday, April 10

Fans of Cat Power didn’t have to wait the full two hours after the Vogue doors opened to see Chan Marshall. Everywhere you looked in the sold-out room, there were Chan Marshalls with bangs, hip-hugging jeans, and sad, kohl-lined eyes. Some of the Chan Marshalls were even boys.

The real Chan Marshall—the one from Georgia, whose name is pronounced Shawn—arrived on-stage eventually, complete with her new backing band, Dirty Delta Blues. The four-piece touring outfit is a poor man’s version of the Memphis combo that played on her 2006 breakthrough album, The Greatest, but hey, she didn’t have a band at all before that. Long-time fans well remember Marshall, aka Cat Power, stumbling solo through maddening, stop-start sets that often either ended in tears or with her fleeing the stage in anger.

This edition of the indie-rock icon was definitely not your older sister’s Cat Power. Marshall’s newfound confidence is almost shocking for those who remember her whispering hoarsely while fumbling to get an E-chord sounding right on an acoustic guitar. Pacing the floorboards like a caged you-know-what and displaying a microphone technique Mick Jagger would admire, she belted out a nearly two-hour set that drew heavily on the covers that make up—or at least are connected with—her most recent album, Jukebox.

Marshall has always had remarkably eclectic tastes, and the show saw her bringing some old favourites back into her repertoire. Especially notable was her raucous take of the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, a song she originally recorded for her 2000 album The Covers Record as a dark ballad with no chorus. Winningly, the classic-rock staple was completely intact on this night.

The spirit of ’60s soul hung heavily over the program, with highlights including an edgy version of the Otis Redding hit “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)” and a harrowing trip down to James Carr’s “The Dark End of the Street”. There was also a perfunctory stab at “The Greatest”—one of her best songs, and an appropriately Bob Dylanesque reading of “Song to Bobby”, the only previously unrecorded original on Jukebox.

Throughout the show, alternately grinning and tugging at her clothes, Marshall got exemplary backing from drummer Jim White and photogenic bassist Erik Paparazzi. Guitarist Judah Bauer, with whom the leader frequently conferred on last-minute set changes, offered unspectacular support and was hindered at times by technical problems. More colour was provided by wild-haired keyboardist Gregg Foreman, who looked like a refugee from Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls movie—and sounded like one during a long interlude of loops and burbling feedback when his fellow musicians left the stage.

Cat Power’s enraptured admirers made it clear they weren’t going anywhere without an encore, and they weren’t disappointed. While connecting with the fans at the foot of the stage, Marshall—who has made a big deal over the past two years of being clean and sober—even took a silver flask out of someone’s outstretched hand and shoved it in her back pocket. After tossing flowers into the crowd, she made the international hand sign of impending drinkies and ran off into the darkness. It was reassuring, in a strange way, to know that the old Chan Marshall hadn’t completely disappeared.