What is it like to suddenly be a star? For Katie Melua it is good, but in her eyes, not so sudden - she's worked years for this. It is good, no doubt, but she is happiest she says, on stage, "when I can hopefully affect people, hopefully make a difference on that night. You know, touch someone." As for what she calls the "fame" and "glitter and glam," Melua doesn't follow her own press. "The fame thing is not my thing." It's still about the people, and while many musicians may say this, in Melua's case, I buy it.

With only a few hours now before the show, Melua graciously snaps a picture with me and signs her photo, then she's whisked away to her hotel where, she tells me, she'll probably take a bath, watch a little TV, eat some food, and maybe even strum a few chords on her guitar...and she'll be alone. She's a woman of a few close friends who she trusts - a "tight, inner-circle" - but is kind to and loved by many.

The truest thing one can say of Katie Melua is that, like Drake, she is interlocking puzzles of contradiction and paradox; at once, gamine and shy, yet bold and wickedly smart and unafraid to make the demands necessary for a great show. One guesses, a perfectionist - likely one who demands more of herself than of anyone else, one who is always raising the bar, higher, higher, always striving to be better. Melua may defy definition, yet at her core, she is refreshingly simple - she just wants to affect people. A minute later, she's off in a taxi. She leaves through the front door, as the first people come streaming through the Boston twilight and into the Paradise. The show is well-packed, close to capacity or just at.

Somewhere out there, Katie Melua is by now sitting quietly at the buzzing center of activity, while a crew of managers, makeup and hair people and various assistants and publicists go about their work. I can see her, sitting calmly at the center, no doubt contemplating the moment as she walks on stage and wondering, which of us in the crowd tonight will be touched by her songs and that incredible molasses-rich voice. She wonders about it, waiting for the moment, now about a half hour from now, feeling that excitement one feels in the moment right before a secret is revealed.