A beautifully erratic performer. 

–

‘All the crazy bitches say “yeah”!’ 

A thoroughly packed audience whooped and hollered to Ms Macy Gray’s encouragement. However, I’m sure Gray wouldn’t be offended by the suggestion that she was probably the craziest presence at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club last night. And it’s a craziness and peculiarity she’s always embraced. She’s had no choice but to with that shredded, breathy, and frankly quite odd voice of hers.

A couple of months ago she released her 10th studio album, reviewed here. Ruby came out of nowhere and, while it may not have made much of a commercial dent, it has a plethora of great songs. Artists like Gray are more likely to be selling out these high-status venues than topping the charts anyway. Her months-in-advance sold-out concerts at Ronnie Scott’s this weekend attest to this. Armed with a fully-decked band including two backing vocalists (clad in feathery red dresses and purple wigs), Gray delivered a set balanced between her greatest hits and her new material.

The set began on a dark, synthy, and explosive note with ‘Relating to a Psychopath’ from Gray’s sophomore record The Id, followed by ‘Caligula’ from her debut On How Life Is. A conservative crowd-pleaser she is not and never has been – the latter track features the line ‘never loving but we’re always fucking‘.

She then introduced cuts from Ruby into the set, beginning with ‘When It Ends’. Gray and her backing vocalists stretched on the chorus, their clear tones supporting her weathered cry. On ‘Over You’ she brimmed with joy, while gesturing to her bandmates as she delivered the breaking-the-fourth-wall line of ‘I got a horn section in my band‘. The band added brilliant colour and vibrancy to this number.

‘Witness’, a track where Gray deplores the political landscape with a sense of hopelessness, was another standout. With her backing singers humming and the audience doing a churchy double clap, the song reached an almost spiritual intensity as if invoking some sort of divine intervention.

After a thrilling interlude from her band, Gray returned to the stage (having changed into a flowing red gown). She delivered her most exposed performance of the night with ‘The Way’, in which she addresses overcoming problems with drug abuse. Whereas the studio version, found on the 2014 album of the same name, is fairly elaborate, last night’s performance was stripped down and performed with added vulnerability. The only slight misstep of the night was her performance of ‘White Man’, the lead track from Ruby and an attack against the incumbent US president, which became the ‘get up and dance’ number of the set – thus sacrificing its political message somewhat (‘Hey white man I am not my grandmother‘).

But she brought it back with her Grammy award-winning smash ‘I Try’. The first verse and chorus was delivered with just Gray and her drummer before elements of the band were introduced. Almost twenty years after the song’s release, she still sings it with unbridled passion.

The Full Band
Macy Gray – Vocals
Tamir Barzilay – Drums
Alexander Kyhn – Bass
William Wesson – Keys/vocals
Jonathan Jackson – Keys/sax/vocals
Kayla Starr – Backing vocals
Tamika Peoples – Backing vocals
Andre Holmes – Guitar/trumpet

The reviewed performance took place on 10th November 2018 at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.

(Image taken from Ronnie Scott’s website)