Mary J Blige, Wembley Arena, London

Soul splendours and miseries

It was foolish to think that the first lady of hip hop soul would abide by the title of her latest, and greatest-selling, album, No More Drama, on the penultimate night of her European tour. Mary J's torrid personal life has provided grist for the scandal sheets and her own songs since she set out from the ghetto of New York's Yonkers district to the 24-carat lifestyle and a New Jersey mansion in 1992.

It has been a path strewn with tantrums, breakdowns, abusive relationships, drink and drug excess. Midway through the show, she is bent double, bellowing and screaming at a ghost lover, the absentee father of her childhood or, possibly, her past self. "How could you?" she wails repeatedly. The question is posed every which way possible, with Blige using her voice, an instrument of remarkable power and clarity, to explore the depths of her pain and heights of her fury.

The effect is unnerving, the stage is empty of the energetic dance troupe that accompanies her for much of the show and the backing singers keep a respectful silence. She's emotionally exhausted, tearfully telling the audience: "I don't want your comfort; it hurts, but that's OK. I just opened something up there."

Indeed, these days Mary J may take her prescription from the Lord, but open-hearted soul surgery is still an essential part of her treatment.

The show is devised as a simple drama in three acts. She arrives on stage in jeans and T-shirt, reliving her street-smart early career.

The machine-age band – two drummer/percussionists and four musicians on a podium, who are playing keyboards, samplers and synthesisers – keep up a relentless pace as she unleashes a medley comprising furious expressions of personal freedom and scathing put-downs. Blige's albums barely hint at the soaring intensity of her live presence, but the cavernous venue deadens the sinuous grooves being tailored on stage. Thankfully, her version of "Children of the Ghetto" augurs a change of pace (and costume) as she enters the conscience, reflective section of the performance.

Seated on a stool, engulfed in the fat, swirling burr of organ and strings, she reaches into her past and into formidable reserves of wordless scat power. "The ghetto isn't a place you can leave; it's a place you carry with you, in here," she explains tapping her head. An ideal made clear in the deep, bluesy "I'm Going Down", which emphasises sadness as a fact of life.

For the final act of the evening, she's in a sparkling white dress, singing celebratory and supplicating songs.

There are moments when her exhortations to the Lord and the life lessons dispensed between the joyous "Family Affair" and the emphatic "You Are Everything" rather resemble a revivalist assembly. But the show finds its resolution – the young hothead now at peace, proving that soul dramas don't have to end in tragedy.