Gathered together in the Wisconsin Union Theater Tuesday night, hippies, families and retirees wore their Sunday-best in anticipation for a classy evening with Grammy-nominee and folk/blues legend Joan Armatrading.

After being reminded three times by a man with a British accent to not take flash photography, the audience gave Armatrading a standing welcome and a round of applause. Someone even shouted, “Woooooooo! Joan Armatrading is here!”

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Soaking in the crowd’s excitement, Armatrading smiled and promptly picked up a black acoustic guitar. Behind her stood another black acoustic and a blue electric guitar. The audience listened passionately while nodding their heads and tapping their feet to her husky vocals and recognizable guitar riffs.

Moving at her own pace, Armatrading played one more song before happily greeting the audience and announcing that the Madison concert was the 197th show on her last major world tour. She then took the audience through a series of photographs on a screen behind her.

Included in these pictures was her standing outside one of her favorite restaurants in the U.K., her posing with Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and Eric Clapton and younger portraits of herself that she still enjoyed. One her favorite pictures, however, was a candid of her laughing and sitting with Nelson Mandela.

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When Armatrading eventually made her way to her red piano, she played “In These Times” accompanied by a slideshow of iconic and historical pictures. Throughout the whole show, the screen behind her played a large role in shaping the audience’s perceptions of the songs.

While Armatrading was wearing her traditional all-black outfit, she made sure to point out a few things from this tour that were not very common with her style.

After decades of playing alongside a full band, this was her first solo tour. In another twist, Armatrading revealed she would not be performing “Love & Affection” for the first time since 1976. Audience members groaned in disapproval, thinking they would not hear one of her most notable works.

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As the show progressed, the crowd forgot their sadness and continued nodding their heads, until the song “Me Myself I” began. A few people from the audience moved closer to the stage and danced as Armatrading shredded her electric guitar and left the audience stunned.

Eventually, Armatrading caved and played “Love & Affection,” leaving the crowd in awe, and a few quietly commented “lovely” and “beautiful.”

Armatrading then told the crowd, “That’s the end of the show,” and laughed along with the audience.

“You’ve been at a concert before, you know what happens at the end of the show,” she said. “At the end, the audience cheers, claps, hollers for the singer to come back. The only difference here is, I’m not going anywhere.”

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For the last song, she sat at her piano one last time and belted out another powerful ballad. Toward the end of the song, she told the audience to sing in unison as her expert fingers brushed the keys. When it was over, Armatrading stood up and giggled, as she received yet another standing ovation.