AUSTIN, Texas--F**kery.

It takes a certain type of girl to write a song that uses such a word, and to sing it with such snarling disdain. In a fantastic performance at the Eternal nightclub here last night, Amy Winehouse showed why she is just that kind of girl and a whole lot more.

The sassy British singer came into SXSW this week with about as much hype as anybody, and in her first showcase performance, proved absolutely worthy of it. She also showed an ability to take what is arguably the best soul record since 1998's Miseducation of Lauryn Hill--her latest album, Back to Black, in stores this week--to another level in a live performance.

At around 1 a.m., with Eternal packed to the gills and the energy in the room bubbling over, Winehouse's well-dressed 10-piece band, comprised of two backup vocalists, two guitarists, three horn players, a bassist, keyboardist, and a drummer, took to the stage wearing suits and looking ever the dapper jazz cats.

Winehouse emerged seconds later looking like a glammed-up biker chick, offering the perfect visage of her sound, which weaves a disarming feistiness over an otherwise retro, jazz- and soul-drenched sound.

The band jumped right into "Addicted," a song that would fit right into the classic Motown canon if not for decidedly less subtle lines about her love for weed, like, "I'd rather have myself and smoke my home grown / It's got me addicted / Does more than any d**k did."

In a wise move, Winehouse and her band played a few older tracks, a nod to the fact that Black is her second album. Tracks like "F**k Me Pumps" display sass and jazz but without the horn-soaked shine that producers Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson gave Black.

Later in the set, on songs like "Tears Dry On Their Own" and "He Can Only Hold Her," Winehouse's ultratight band took off, rattling off stellar horn breaks over classic funk beats and giving the singer an easy platform to strut her vocal prowess. On the latter, Winehouse even gave Hill a shout by mixing in a few refrains of "Doo Wop (That Thing)."

As for the aforementioned "f**kery," Winehouse sang it with a curled upper lip when it came time for the song that contains it, "Me & Mr. Jones": "What kind of f**kery is this? / You made me miss the Slick Rick gig."

And not surprisingly, she closed the night with "Rehab," her breakout hit that serves as a wink-wink to her love for the sauce, a taste she displayed by downing cocktails throughout the set.

All in all, this was a terrific show, steeped in the old but with a modern audacity. Classic soul music has a new torch bearer.