EDMONTON - People around these parts have the unique opportunity to remember k.d. lang before she became who she is today - the Zen Master of pop ballads.

They call this former Edmontonian a "torch" singer, which must be because she sets fire to everything she sings - proven several times during an incredible show at the Jubilee Auditorium last night. It was a demonstration of a God-given vocal gift: Flawless technique, perfect pitch, impeccable control and a vast arsenal of power held in reserve until it really mattered. Few singers can wring emotion out of a song like k.d. lang. The hometown crowd was captivated by the best voice in adult contemporary music today.

Some locals remember her as the punk rock Patsy Cline.

Long before she got famous, Kathryn Dawn Lang started her professional career in Edmonton. I remember seeing her for the first time in the early '80s at some warehouse party downtown where they served draft beer in plastic cups. There on a small stage is what appears to be a commando Minnie Pearl in spiky short hair, a giant frilly poodle skirt and gumboots, performing like a dynamo. The crowd was rocking (in slight, but no less powerful, contrast to the ballad-heavy show last night).

As she wailed on some boogie-woogie Western swing thing, couples madly two-stepped around the room. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Then, on a Patsy Cline ballad, possibly Crazy, accompanied by a honky-tonk piano player in a cowboy hat - Stewart MacDougall - lang delivered a devastating performance, ending the song in a heartbroken heap on the dance floor, whereupon a woman from the audience jumped up and kissed her full on the lips.

Hmm, I thought. There's something you don't see every day.

Many years, several Grammy awards and a fresh honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Alberta later, she is still capable of evoking that same power with her remarkable voice alone. No theatrics necessary. Add a wonderful band playing silken, bohemian arrangements that sounded like they were produced by Mitchell Froom - no offence to MacDougall, Gordie Matthews and the rest of the Reclines, but her new band is awesome - and we have musical nirvana.

There was a steel guitar in the band, along with the odd banjo - played by the same guy, Joshua Grange - but there were only slight hints of lang's burlesque alt-country past, as in a cover of Chris Isaak's Western Stars. And Smoke Rings - from her smoking-themed record Drag -was gussied up like a hokey country ballad, drenched in irony. Even she couldn't keep a straight face through "puff, puff, puff, puff your cares away."

Other material ranged from covers of Neil Young's Helpless - k.d.'s version being far preferable to the original, though you could argue that about all of Neil Young's songs - to familiar hits like the silly Miss Chatelaine, accompanied by her very silly dance. Constant Craving, probably her biggest hit that launched her ascendancy from cow-punk to adult contemporary pop (more money in the latter), was recast in a Latin groove, with interesting effect. It took the crowd several bars to make out which song it was and cheer accordingly.

A sucker for ballads like any great singer, lang's true gift comes through in the slow material. Wash Me Clean was devastating. The Jane Siberry song was mesmerizing. And her version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah - another song she now owns -well, there go those neck hairs again. The show was all over the map, like her entire career. Some artists are married to their genre. You don't see Alan Jackson doing jazz. But for k.d. lang and vocal stylists of her calibre, genre is secondary. The personality is the important thing. When lang does a song, she owns it.

Endearing quirks - like the lower case spelling of her name (the only lower case celebrity we allow to break grammatical rules in our newspaper), performing in bare feet, being a lesbian vegetarian from rural Alberta or picking an opening act piano player named Dustin O'Halloran whose mellow original instrumental compositions sounded like a cross between Erik Satie and Frank Mills - are just the icing on the cake. She was eccentric then. She's eccentric now.

A lot of great artists are.