The opening night of Raye’s first UK arena tour was a big band spectacular that sometimes felt like an acting audition and occasionally strayed into confessional. The 28-year-old south Londoner is a singular star with charisma to spare but a tendency to overshare.
Raye shimmied solo on stage at Manchester’s Co-op Live in a white, floor-length fur coat and sunglasses, barefoot in front of a red velvet curtain. Above her was a cloud that shed tinsel rain.
The set-up mirrored some of the lyrics from guts-spilling new song I Will Overcome, which referenced Amy Winehouse and was bluesy, jazzy, operatic and kind of a mime all at once. Only when four violinists arrived did a crowd stunned into silence erupt into cheers.
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Two years on from her record-setting six wins at the Brit awards, Raye is at last moving on from her 2023 debut album, My 21st Century Blues. Its follow-up, This Music May Contain Hope, is out next month and made up much of this sumptuous, two-hour-plus set, which featured fabulous fashion, lashings of humour and a superb, 19-strong band including brass and strings.
Chart-topping lead single WHERE IS MY HUSBAND! — still nestled in the Top 3 five months after its release — was a dizzying delight that started as the curtain dropped to reveal Raye and a pair of dancing backing singers in sparkly red cocktail dresses surrounded by the band toe-tapping in time.
New songs included the Beware the South London Lover Boy, a fizzy warning from Raye for females to take care out there. The Winter Woman was a mid-tempo monster that veered from hip-hop to soul to spoken word. Click Clack Symphony was a mini-musical that crammed in almost as many words as Raye’s rambling explanation of it.
Intimacy is part of Raye’s charm, but in an arena, too much chatting — about the inspiration behind her songs, high heels and spreading joy, among other things — sometimes broke the spell. A jazz club section was unfocused even before a wine bottle broke and the stage had to be swept for its shoeless star.
Raye was back to spellbinding alone at piano and fighting back tears for Ice Cream Man, a song about her rape that won a Grammy this month. Oscar Winning Tears was a rowdy duet with the audience, new song Joy lived up to its title and Escapism, the No 1 that began Raye’s rise, sent fans home on a high.
★★★★☆
Touring to Co-op Live, Manchester, Feb 18; OVO Hydro, Glasgow, Feb 20-21; bp Pulse, Birmingham, Feb 23-24; O2 Arena, London, Feb 26-27 and Mar 1-2, rayeofficial.com
• Brit winner Raye: ‘Everything I’ve been told by men in music was a lie’
Set list, Manchester Co-op Live, Feb 17
1. I Will Overcome
2. WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!
3. The Thrill Is Gone
4. Suzanne
5. Beware the South London Lover Boy
6. Flip a Switch/Decline
7. The Winter Woman
8. Hard Out Here
9. Genesis, Pt II
10. Fly Me to the Moon (Kaye Ballard cover)
11. Worth It
12. Nightingale Lane
13. Ice Cream Man
14. I Know You’re Hurting
15. Oscar Winning Tears
16. Click Clack Symphony
17. Secrets
18. You Don’t Know Me (Jax Jones cover)
19. Black Mascara
20. Prada
21. Joy
22. Escapism (encore)
