Lots of pretty young things started queuing up early to make their way into the Enmore Theatre tonight. London dance/pop songstress Rita Ora is currently hopping around our continent as part of the Future Music festival and this was her Sydney debut sideshow.
Our openers The Faders DJs and DJ Georgia managed to turn the Enmore Theatre dancefloor into a miniature nightclub minus the strobe lighting. It was fairly standard fare for what you would find hitting up the clubs every other weekend. There was lots of fistpumping and the mosh was gyrating quite a bit with Swedish House Mafia’s “Don’t You Worry Child” and Nicki Minaj’s “Beez In The Trap” getting dropped. Howeveri t was merely a warm-up for our headliner.
After a short 15 minute turnaround the lady of the evening, Rita Ora, exploded onto the stage with her current single “Radioactive”. With an addictively catchy chorus, it had the audience putting their “palms to the sky” and singing along. The miniscule minute and a half track “Facemelt” was sneakily mashed up into the end of “Radioactive” and featured some trippy video projections of Ora’s face undergoing some melting effects.
“Love And War” has a slow grinding groove that powers along and gives Ora a chance to show off her lower register vocals. Similar to this is “Uneasy”, but it has a much punchier chorus and really lifts the energy of the crowd. It’s interesting that her acoustic choices give a smoother and soulful feel to her music, including a cover of Outkast’s “Hey Ya” that got us all singing along.
During “Meet Ya” Ora pulled audience member Kevin up onstage for a duet. Though he sang nothing and she ended up spending most of the song sitting on his lap and crooning to him and the crowd. Ora wrapped up the main part of her set with “Roc The Life”, which is a little bit gangster and interestingly one of her darker tracks. ‘I’m off the chain, you know you love it,’ she sings and she’s right, the crowd are enjoying her rapping.
For her encore her first hit “How We Do” gets wheeled out and the room bursts into a mini party atmosphere. It’s good to hear Ora’s entire vocal range soar and dance around onstage.
It’s evident from the outset that Ora’s vocals are supposed to be on show, though frustratingly the bass drum was overpowering, making it difficult to discern lyrics. I’m not entirely sure why artists who have a dance background seem to think that louder equals better. Regardless this was probably the main detraction.
With an impressive light show and screen productions, Ora is a performer in all aspects- she engages her audience and feeds off their excitement. An interesting mix of beats and dance with brawny vocals and sassy songwriting.
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