Recently, there has been the sense that Macy Gray's career is losing momentum. Her second album, The Id, has underperformed, despite being a considerably more interesting record than her debut, On How Life Is. In fact, that may be the problem. With its intriguing lyrics and experimental flourishes, The Id is a challenging listen, and in 2002, "challenging" is an adjective that causes record company executives to tremble and audiences to man the lifeboats.
Tonight, the Academy is far from packed. The smart-casual late-20s couples who have turned up are no more interested in accompanying Gray on a journey to the outer reaches of psychedelic soul than they are in listening to her intro tape, which mixes dub reggae with techno.
They are here to watch the woman with the funny voice and afro sing I Try. It is the first song Gray performs, a defiant gesture from an artist audibly bored by her biggest hit. The audience cheers nervously. "Why are you so fucking quiet?" barks Gray.
Quite aside from her extraordinary voice, Gray is an imposing physical presence. Wearing a pinstripe suit and pink wig, she flirts with the front rows and demands to see "some naked white people". The show's format is borrowed from an old soul revue: there are call-and-response vocals, competitions to see which side of the crowd can cheer the loudest, lengthy solos from the band. It's corny stuff but the familiar structure allows Gray to indulge in less commercial material without alienating her audience. She reworks Why Didn't You Call Me? as Kraftwerk-sampling electro pop. She performs The Id's lengthy, frantic highlight, Relating to a Psychopath, without a murmur of discontent from the crowd. By the time she roars through Give Me All Your Lovin' Or I Will Kill You, the smart-casual couples are singing along with a song that cheerily advocates violence as a means of solving domestic disputes. It's a peculiar sight: peculiar enough to eradicate even the memory of that hit single.
· At Brixton Academy, London (0870 060 0100) tonight, then touring to Manchester.
