Her solo spoken word stuff (reading from Paradoxia, I think) didn't do much for me, but the moment she has at least one musician behind her she is electrifying. I saw her about twelve years ago doing a show with just her backed by Rowland S Howard, and it was amazing.
EDIT - Rather excitingly, I've just found pictures from the Lydia / Rowland show that I saw on a
Rowland S Howard web site.
And there's
video too!