"This magnificent performer – there's no one quite like her," said the evening's host, Paul O'Grady, rather understating the matter. Dame Shirley Bassey is almost certainly the only singer who could get away with silently standing, arms outstretched, for a full three minutes after making her entrance. Floor-length sequined dress slit to the thigh, sparkling shoes – the sold-out house could only goggle.

That lengthy eyeful was followed by a 70-minute earful of a voice that could blast through granite. Ostensibly, Bassey was here as a jobbing musician, promoting her first new studio album in 20 years, but the atmosphere was that of a command performance. The BBC Concert Orchestra provided the music, and a parade of guests – including Richard Hawley, Manic Street Preacher James Dean Bradfield and composer David Arnold – filed on- and off-stage, rewarded by queenly hugs. Each has written a track on Bassey's new record, The Performance, and played it here, to varying effect. Bassey's tendency to wring the juice out of everything she sings meant Hawley's delicate After the Rain crumpled under her delivery, but she turned in a surprisingly subtle version of Bradfield's melancholy The Girl From Tiger Bay.

Bassey knew, though, that nobody was there to hear new songs, or the handful of 1960s covers – Something, Light My Fire – that bulked out the set. Swinging into Big Spender, she asked: "You've probably been waiting for this, haven't you?" Of course we had: bring on Big Spender, Diamonds Are Forever and, especially, Goldfinger. On these classic anthems, the power and drama of her voice raised goosebumps. Regal to the end, Bassey threw flowers to the front row before departing. Marvellous.