Amy Winehouse performing in one of her favourite places

NO performer ever comes off stage and knows they’ve just had the greatest gig of their career – no writer can tell if they’ve just written the best book they’ll ever write, no footballer can say for certain they have just scored a goal they’ll never better.

There’s always another one to do, to write, to score.

But, whether she thought about it at the time or not, perhaps Amy Winehouse’s “secret” gig in the backroom of the Dublin Castle in 2007 can now be considered to be at least up there among her most legendary moments on stage.

It was seen as a homecoming gig in one of her favourite places.

By then she had commanded attention with her Back To Black album released the previous year. People around the world had taken notice, and soon she would be able to call herself a Grammy winner.

But that night she was in one of her favourite places, the music pub in Parkway, Camden Town, which has musical history sweating from its walls. Amy could count the pub’s owners, the Conlon family including the Queen of the Castle, Peggy, as her friends – and later, when she fancied a night out without being poked, prodded and papped, she might join them behind the bar pulling pints for surprised customers.

Her performance – part of the Camden Crawl festival – saw people cram in hip to hip. Suggs and the poet rapper Scroobius Pip were there, as was, right at the back with his cap tilted to hide his face, the actor David Schwimmer; Ross from Friends leaning against the back wall of the Dublin Castle.

Footballer Dean Holdsworth at the door

Dean Holdsworth, a footballer who was better known then than he perhaps is now, was outside making a long forgotten reality show. The year’s vintage is perhaps revealed in the photo above; people online have suggested they have spotted Nick Grimshaw, the Radio One DJ, queuing behind him, a personality definitely more famous now than he was then.

So despite the Dublin’s cosy capacity, it was the hottest ticket in London that night. A few of us from the New Journal were allowed in, but it’s only with the passing of time and the unravelling of what was to come, that you really realise what a moment it was.

She was electric with enthusiasm, taking care with her performance but rollicking happily through all of Back To Black with her finger snapping jazz band – still in soul suits – squeezed onto that little but important stage.

Perhaps we had just witnessed her greatest gig. Who knows?

A 2007 camera phone captures the performance and below, Henry Conlon, Scroobius Pip and Suggs back stage

She played bigger venues and festivals, but those were places where she would have been a dancing dot in the faraway distance for people stuck at the back.

That meant less room for engagement, or the special connection she found with people in Camden Town. It’s an uneasy relationship, of course.

This has been a supplement which has championed our area’s great music pubs, while at the same time sympathising with Amy’s fight with addiction, including alcoholism. NW1, in truth, has always been that crossroads of magical, bohemian creativity and dangerous hedonism. It’s a circle which is hard to square.

But for that hour on that night during that summer, Amy was on top of the world, being her best, and feeling at home.

Her picture still hangs above the bar.