Joni Mitchell makes triumphant return to the stage

Joni Mitchell was showered with love on Saturday night, as she played her first headline show in more than 20 years.

Until recently, the chance of seeing the 79-year-old in concert had seemed like a fading possibility.

She suffered a near-fatal brain aneurysm in 2015 and had to re-learn how to walk, talk and play guitar.

But on Saturday, she played for nearly three hours, accompanied by famous irers like Annie Lennox, Marcus Mumford and Brandi Carlile.

The show, in Washington state, was billed as a "Joni Jam", recreating the loose, wine-fuelled sessions Mitchell hosted for other musicians in her California house during her rehabilitation.

"It's not gonna be someone coming up here singing their songs one after the other," explained Carlile, who helped put the show together.

Instead, she likened the concert to peering into the tiny cabin inside a snow globe, and seeing what life had been like for Mitchell over the last decade.

"[I've] watched one of the most miraculous things I've seen in my life," Carlile continued, "and now you get to see it."

The show was essentially an expanded version of the surprise set Mitchell played at last year's Newport Folk Festival (also organised by Carlile) and marked the star's first ticketed concert since the 2000 Both Sides Now tour.

The venue was the Gorge Amphitheatre, a stunning outdoor arena with soaring views of the cliffs leading down to the Columbia River - but the stage was decorated to look like Mitchell's living room, complete with couches, lamps, side tables, and photographs of her pet cat and dog.

Mitchell sat in the centre, wearing a pink floral silk shirt, with her hair in pigtail braids under a purple beret, and carrying a cane adorned with a small bear's head.

She sipped white wine between songs, growing more loquacious as the night continued, sharing show business gossip and trading banter with Carlile.

The show opened with Big Yellow Taxi, prompting an immediate singalong from the audience, before taking a casual stroll through Mitchell's back catalogue - from standards like Both Sides Now and A Case Of You to deeper cuts like A Strange Boy.

Sarah McLachlan ed Mitchell to duet on an aching version of Blue; Marcus Mumford took on California; while Annie Lennox delivered a mesmerising, synth-driven take on Ladies of the Canyon.

The Scottish star also recalled how a roommate had introduced her to Mitchell's music when she was just 19.

"It blew my mind… and started me on a path I never expected to happen," Lennox said. "The thing is, back in the day, there were so few of us women doing this thing we're doing. We take it for granted, don't we":[]}