A heavyweight voice in a featherweight body, Poppy delights in Raleigh with a metal sing-along with hundreds of excited young voices.
American metal singer sensation Moriah Rose Pereira, better known as Poppy, brought her They’re All Around Us Tour to The Ritz in Raleigh, North Carolina. The roughly three-quarters-full venue was filled with teens and their mobile phone screens, eagerly awaiting Poppy’s performance on a beautiful early fall evening. Half sporting a variety of metal T-shirts, the other half in meek goth black clothing and makeup, the young crowd was buzzing with excitement before the music began.
Opener MSPAINT slinked onto the stage without fanfare, appearing possibly as a posse of techs doing one last check on the instruments. Once the venue lights changed and the music began, MSPAINT only continued to build on the uncertainty in the room. A mixture of rap, rock, electronic noise, and aggressive slam poetry, MSPAINT’s sound is what an unholy union between Rage Against The Machine and an iPhone commercial would sound like. The band began their set with “Surveillance,” a funky rap-rock track which made a few heads in the audience bob, but vocalist DeeDee’s wild hair and constant prowling across the front of the stage left most in the audience still scratching their heads. By mid-way through MSPAINT’s set, their power and awesomeness became evident, and the audience locked in as the band delivered a heavy dose of experimental rap art rock that ended far too quickly.
Support act UnityTX from Dallas, TX, set up equipment for their set with smiles and a gleeful giddiness to perform. Vocalist Jay Webster, adorned with a James Brown-hairstyle wig and long black jacket, paused regularly to pose for photographs and project his best Mr. Dynamite vibe into the room. When the set began, a whole new persona for UnityTX showed up, one that demanded violence in the pit and berated the audience for being weak and worthless if they didn’t step up to hit someone. Molded as a more modern version of the band Body Count, the band’s sound was limited to low, rhythmic growling like heavy machinery, overlayed with Jay’s rapping vocals and an occasional death metal growl. Delivering the more expected hard rock/metal sound most audience members were seeking from the opening act, and after enough goading to coax enough young men to begin throwing each other violently around in the pit, UnityTX riled up The Ritz and raised the temperature prior to the eagerly awaited headliner taking the stage.
From the moment Poppy took to the stage, The Ritz contained almost as much light from iPhone screens recording the show as there were lights on the stage. Quickly setting the pace for the evening, hits such as “VAN” and “have you had enough” came early in the setlist, accompanied by throbbing lights, CO2 cannons, and dense stage fog. Poppy’s mask-wearing, nameless, unidentified backing musicians played intermittently along with the heavy backing tracks for a highly produced, album-similar sound which urged along the group sing-along from start to end of the set.
Entering and exiting the stage in between every song, sometimes with very long delays before the next song began, Poppy added a brief skit featuring a doll-version of herself having a life realization moment while speaking with the audience. Presumably a commentary on experiencing life through a screen, watching life unfold live through a series of un-alive lit-up screen pixels, the skit brought a moment of Poppy’s quirky, opinionated perspective on life and social norms. Reportedly private while off the stage, Poppy basked in the attention of the camera lenses fixated on her all night, recording every moment of her lyrics and their messages. A rare voice in the male-dominated heavy rock/metal world, Poppy delivered a beautiful, fragile, yet aggressively attacking vocal performance, confirming Poppy is the real deal.
Poppy’s They’re All Around Us Tour continues until October 12, ending in Mexico City.
PHOTO BY: Ana Massard
