TORONTO -- The Spice Girl who can really belt out a tune returned to Spice City Thursday night for a solo show at the Phoenix where -- surprise, surprise -- she got a rapturous reception.

That would be Melanie C, a.k.a. Sporty Spice, who is touring clubs in Canada on behalf of her fourth solo album, This Time, just over two months after British pop act the Spice Girls wrapped up their massively successful world reunion trek in Toronto. (Toronto earned its nickname Spice City because fans voted in droves to have the five Spices play here. The girls played no less than four shows at the Air Canada Centre including the final show of the tour.)

Turns out Melanie C also knows how to draw crowds as a solo act in T.O. (not so in Ottawa earlier this week where only a couple hundred people showed up). The packed floor of the Phoenix was divided up between older fans and screaming young girls with placards proclaiming their love for her and members of her five-piece band, that is when they weren't blowing bubbles or taking pictures with their cellphones.

Granted several hundred people showing up for Mel C alone is hard to compare to the tens of thousands who did for the collective Spice Rack, but, either way, she did justice to her hour-and-15 minute set and seemed genuinely thrilled that everyone in the audience was thrilled, too.

"I've been looking forward to the Toronto show for the last month," she said. "I had high expectations and you didn't let me down! I f---ing love Toronto!"

She's definitely got the vocal power and bubbly personality -- very warm, chatty and charming -- to sustain her own career and the strength of her material -- particularly the new stuff, which was galvanized in a live setting -- almost made you wonder why she isn't more popular on this side of the pond.

"Wooo! It's hot in here. Let me have a little look-see at Toronto," she said peering out into the audience. "You look really good, even better than I remember."

Standouts included several of the new ballads May Your Heart, Forever Again, This Time, Protected, the new mid-tempo number Don't Let Me Go -- with one of her two guitarists Greg Hatwell subbing as her duet partner on this song and again on her famous collaboration with Bryan Adams on When You're Gone -- and Let's Love and Never Be The Same.

She also had the crowd in the palm of her hand for older songs such as Northern Star, with the fans taking over with a spirited singalong, rockers such as Next Big Superstar, Goin' Down and Yeh, Yeh, Yeh, and the techno-infused set-ender I Turn To You.

So maybe Melanie C didn't bring choreographed dance moves, gorgeous Roberto Cavalli costumes or male dancers on her solo trek like the Spice Girls did a short time ago, but she obviously possesses her own very real Girl Power and, frankly, it seems built to last.