I attended a RAYE concert at the 02 arena in London on the 15th of march 2024. RAYE performed her album “my 21st century blues” live with the heritage orchestra and a choir. She performed her hit songs “Prada” and “escapism“ as well as the rest of her album. The doors opened at 6:30pm and the support act came on at 7:45. The support act was RAYE’s sister known as ‘Absolutely’. RAYE came on stage at 8:30pm till 10:20pm, towards the end of the concert she got the crowd to become her choir. She split the arena into 4 groups, group 1 and 2 were people standing and were split down the middle, group 3 was the right seated part of the arena and group 4 was the left seated part of the arena. I was in group 3. RAYE told us to sing part of her song ‘buss it down’, the phrase was “she gon’ buss it”. My group, group 3, had to sing it in a higher pitch compared to the other groups with group 4 being the lowest pitch. She taught us our part and told us to sing it separately and then once all together. After we became her personal choir she went on to sing her song “Buss it down”. RAYE finished the concert with her hit sing  ‘escapism’.

RAYE is an incredible vocalist and she can hit notes that some artists can’t and when she proved this during her performance i was taken aback. She also provided such raw and emotional performances with some of her sadder songs that talked about topics such as addiction (‘Mary Jane’) and sexual assault (‘Ice cream man’).

The event made me more aware of how songs can be an expression of ones deeper thoughts and that multiple songs can be combined into an album that displays a story or a journey of ones feelings.