Playing to a sparse crowd in Belgrave Music Hall, Girl Ray’s undercooked hour of straightforward disco-pop had highlights but suffered from a muddy mix and was ultimately upstaged by their support act.
To be fair to me, the passage from the neon-lit buzz of Belgrave Canteen to the upstairs Belgrave Music Hall isn’t immediately obvious, particularly upon arriving relatively early on a Tuesday night. Not for the first time at this venue, I accidentally managed to skip the queue via a promising unmarked door next to the pizza stand, and located a toilet before approaching the security guards, receiving a slightly mean chuckle when they pointed out I had toilet roll stuck to the bottom of my shoe. Once in, I did at least have first dibs for the bar and for Belgrave’s limited seating, plus unfettered access to the merch stand. It wouldn’t be manned until after the gig three hours later, but I made sure to leave the venue sporting a bright red Girl Ray tee nonetheless.
Twenty minutes later came that sinking feeling that comes with watching a support act take to the stage to a nearly empty room, and tonight was a particularly tough draw for Kuntessa, whose audience numbered around 20 for her opener. She did at least seem to have three dedicated fans supportively bobbing up and down to the beat near the front, until I realised these were of course the Girl Ray trio willing on their friend. Astonishingly, the Italian electronica songwriter seemed unfazed, posing and preening joyfully across the stage and hilariously introducing zany songs that ranged from rants about her time as a bartender, her love of Kylie Minogue prosecco and a showstopper about wanting to become her crush’s bike saddle – all from her recent Pussy Pitstop EP, as she was at pains to remind us. It was a showing easily profane enough to prove the crudeness of her stage name is no mistranslated coincidence.
Support act Kuntessa played to an almost empty room.
I positioned myself at the front during the final build up to Girl Ray’s set and had expected the wide empty space behind me to fill up with latecomers. Instead, there remained a six-feet radius around me and I ended up uncomfortably feeling like part of the show, feeling too exposed to slip back into the crowd; I was closer to frontwoman Poppy Hankin than any other audience member. It was perfect for dancing, yes (and it had been no problem when a similar thing happened for Los Bitchos last year), but also mildly embarrassing.
It was a shame, because this has been a big year for Girl Ray. Mirroring Jessie Ware, although on a much smaller scale, the trio has pivoted from serviceable indie pop to energising disco through their rewarding recent album Prestige, which presented a sort of raffish charm that suited a genre accustomed to not taking itself too seriously. Faultless pop tunes like Everybody’s Saying That and True Love have no doubt already fueled wild nights in Girl Ray’s familiar North London haunts but, like a hungry young football team contemplating an away day to Stoke, could they deliver the goods on a drab night in Leeds?
The answer was, sadly, not really. Opener True Love immediately fell flat when Hankin’s crucial rhythm guitar was rendered inaudible by a messy mix, and over the course of the next few songs the balance hardly improved even when Hankin repeatedly asked the sound engineer to turn her up. Unlike Kuntessa, Girl Ray seemed understandably a little deflated by the poor turnout on this, the penultimate night of a sizeable UK tour. The gave it an admirable good effort, but lyrics like “baby, get down with me,” simply don’t work without maximum gusto.
In the end, that was what condemned this brief gig: Girl Ray’s performance was never simply bad, just consistently unremarkable. Solos were unambitious, never venturing far from the original recording and lacking any sort of technical dazzle needed to wake up a tepid crowd. Hankin’s vocals sound endearingly rough and ready on the record, but here they just sounded ordinary and slightly held back, like a shy friend delivering a relatively impressive showing at karaoke, good enough for a few raised eyebrows, if not quite a free drink.
Nonetheless, there were highlights to be found once the worst of the mixing issues had been resolved. Tell Me was easily the band’s most exciting song and provided a workout for Sophie Moss on bass plus Girl Ray’s most pleasingly silly couplet: “baby, we were hot like a cigar / but here I am crying in the back of my car”. Hold Tight arrived with a bouncy electronic drum beat from Iris McConnell at the back of the stage and Hankin’s acoustic guitar strumming was buoyant and peppy, even if it seemed to take perhaps a little too much inspiration from George Michael’s Faith.
Give Me Your Love, Prestige’s 7 minutes, 43 seconds closer and arguably the only song in Girl Ray’s catalogue to show some genuine creative ambition, closed the set. I had found it underwhelming on the record but was hopeful it would come alive in person. The entry of a severely overblown kick drum, engulfing all other instruments with every beat, put a swift end to those hopes. It was so deafening it even seemed to startle the three band members at first – good for clearing out my sinuses, less good for closing out a pop concert. It was fitting for this gig that a final, potentially interesting crack at the vocoder from Hankin was almost entirely lost to the din.
I had hoped to meet one of the band at the merch stand afterwards, but having lingered for ten minutes I settled on telling Kuntessa how much I admired her confidence before attempting my exit, trying a door I’d been through on previous visits to Belgrave for investigative purposes. I quickly turned around when the same security guard as earlier told me in no uncertain terms that I had to leave the same way I came in. Feeling sheepish, I decided a bus home would be a solo adventure too far this time and called an Uber. For me as for Girl Ray, sometimes it’s just not your night.