PINK found fame as the feisty ladette with no qualms singing about her personal problems and sticking it to the man. Unafraid to explore mental disorders and failed love affairs in drawnout detail, we warmed to her as the female version of Robbie Williams.

And as she brings her Funhouse tour to Newcastle, fans will find the popstar has her trademark bad attitude in spades.

But a subdued (though soldout) crowd suggests her stroppy pop princess creation is wearing a bit thin, and not even some impressive trapeze artists can convince them.

Kicking off with the tour’s title song, the 30-year-old promises to burn the house down. If only that were the case – missing are the feel-good anthems that get you and your mates dancing in the aisles, the calling card of acts like Girls Aloud and Beyonce.

The audience were there to see Pink, the troubled icon.

And that’s what the singer (real name Alecia Moore) strives to deliver with 2001’s Don’t Let Me Get Me and Just Like A Pill, and though she hasn’t a showstopping range, her confident vocals, balancing defiant rebel yell and damsel in distress, don’t disappoint.

If the songwriting lacks depth then she’s wise to riff off classics from Led Zeppelin and Gnarls Barkley and, to everyone’s delight, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

She also treated fans to a demonstrative rendition of Blondie’s I Touch Myself (was everyone so chuffed when Madonna tried it?).

Where she goes astray is with long, soppy acoustic sessions. I doubt anyone was prepared to sit through a piano version of the childish moan Family Portrait.

More bangers like So What and Get This Party Started would’ve injected some energy to an otherwise average night.