SAN FRANCISCO--The most striking thing about Joss Stone, throughout her young career and in a sold-out show at The Warfield last night, is the utter incongruity between her look and her sound.

The look: a leggy, barefoot, giddy, and, quite frankly, gorgeous young British woman, sporting dark hair laden with pink streaks, wearing a temptingly short pink-with-gray-swirls dress.

The sound: a weathered, oft-crossed but resilient, 50-something black woman from the American south with some gospel in her background.

Once you get past that clash, what emerges is a gifted singer whose life experiences simply need to catch up to her voice. Her songs lack that been-wronged flavor to match her voice, instead veering toward generic odes to love, both romantic and sonic.

Backed by a 10-piece band led by soul vet Raphael Saadiq, who produced Stone's latest album, Introducing Joss Stone, the 20-year-old Brit performed a 90-minute set last night that was solid but unspectacular.

Newcomer Javier kicked off the night with a solo set of acoustic soul that invoked a young Bill Withers, followed by Ryan Shaw, a bluesy soul singer whose debut album, This is Ryan Shaw, is chock full of the kind of raunch-free, gospel-infused soul that fans of Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett would love. Javier's set was good, but Shaw was terrific, pumping new energy into classics like "A Change Is Gonna Come" and Bobby Womack's "Looking for Love" and belting out "Nobody," a bluesy stomper that's the best track on his album.

After a lengthy instrumental intro, Stone took the stage to thunderous cheers from the mostly older crowd. She was giddy like a schoolgirl and stayed that way throughout the night. Opening with "Girl They Won't Believe It," Stone's voice seemed faint one moment and filled the room the next--hard to tell if it was the sound mixing, her proximity to the mic, or just an overworked voice.

The fluctuations were a bit annoying, but overall she sounded great, moving from creeping ballads like "Tell Me What We're Gonna Do Now" to burners like "Tell Me 'Bout It." The standout track was "Music," in which Stone pledges her love for her craft. Instead of the skilled but-out-of-place rap verse by Lauryn Hill that appears on the album version, the track featured some terribly funky horn stabs.

The energy plummeted during the encore, in which Stone allowed all 10 members of her band to perform a solo--bass solos generally suck the air out of a room. This was a solid set, and while Stone's talent is unquestionable, as she showed last night, it might be a while before we hear her best work.