Has Raye Already Broken Into the Pantheon of Great 21st Century Entertainers? This Year’s Smashing Tour Has Told the Tale

Adele was in the audience for the closing night of Raye‘s U.S. tour this week at the Greek Theatre, which naturally led to all kinds of murmurings about torches being passed. One imagines Adele being the type to give up a torch only when it’s pried out of her cold, dead hands, but it’s safe to say that a certain flame is now at least being shared. It’s not casual hyperbole to say that with this tour, the 28-year-old British singer has crossed some kind of threshold to earn a place in the pantheon of great 21st century entertainers. The barrier to entry may seem like it’s lower than it used to be, for what constitutes a first-rank diva, but in her current prime Raye meets all the bars, past and present.

There is a lot more to being a great diva than just having a great voice, of course. Where Raye really shows she is up to Adele’s standard is in being a great talker. There’s a great tradition among female belters of being masters of repartee and prolific oversharing, but it was more the province of Vegas entertainers than arena-level pop acts until Adele more or less made it into its own artform, particularly on her “25” tour a decade ago. You could say that Adele walked so that Raye could run in that regard, but the more truthful way of putting it might be that Adele ran her mouth so that Raye could also run hers, with endlessly charming results in both cases. The gift of gab might be only fifth or sixth on either woman’s list of talents, but it’s one of the most essential parts of why they’ll both be selling out shows for the rest of their lives.

“I saw a TikTok the other day that said, ‘Rae talks too much during her shows,’” the singer shared during Wednesday’s show… in the middle of a six-minute monologue. “And you know when you start spiraling, when you’re like, ‘Oh, oh, no, oh, no. Rein it in. Rein it in. Get to the point!’ Not that that would destroy me. I’m still gonna be me. But for those of you who do think I talk too much, I am sorry, all right? But this is just me.” Perhaps the woman doth protest too much about protesting too much; the audience’s whoops and hollers made it clear that, for them, the more mouthing off, the merrier.

Of course, diversions work best on their way to a destination, and as the rhythm-guitar noodling under her soliloquy promised, Raye had a hell of a landing point in mind with “Nightingale Lane,” the big centerpiece ballad off her recent “This Music May Contain Hope” album. Before she got there, the singer urged the crowd to take a load off: “Feel free to take a seat, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, this is a seated venue. I love sitting down so much. I think it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures.” (Preach, sister.) Then came an explanation of how, in life, most people have a “main ex,” not to be confused with “a couple of side exes” whose memories don’t evoke so much trauma, and this one is about hers, and about how even a fragrance in the air while “you’re on your way to get some eggs” can heighten the anxiety that a chance encounter might be about to occur. Then, through a show of hands, she surveyed the audience for how many people were single, made an estimate of that, carved out her own exclusions for how many in that portion she figured might be happily single, and then finally introduced “Nightingale Lane” as being “for the 17% of us that’s left.”

She may or may not have a career as a statistician if a backup plan were required, but it seems pretty clear the storytelling thing is just always going to work out.

In case any of the above makes Raye’s show sound like an exercise in pure intimacy, that may be giving the wrong impression. So let’s back up. A red curtain opened at the top of the 125-minute set to reveal about as big a band as it’s possible to take on the road, including seven horn players on one side of the stage and seven string players on the other, with Raye in a red gown in the middle, flanked by two female singers in tuxedoes. It not only looked but sounded like someone’s fever dream of Vegas — pre-Sphere and even pre-Celine — with Keely Smith dressed up as Marilyn Monroe to be her own one-woman Rat Pack. It was literally as well as figuratively brassy as Raye didn’t waste much time getting to her biggest domestic hit, as the album-opening “I Will Overcome” led right into “Where Is My Husband?,” with the singer doing a lot of sharp hand-and-arm choreography with her two androgynous backup vocalists, but also proving that her dress was not so tight as to forestall the entire hourglass being put into motion.

The singer included a few distinct segments in her set, starting with a “Raye’s Jazz Club” bit, set up with a door being brought out for her to walk through bearing that name. Raye did establish during the night that she likes being seated, so she and the string players all took to chairs around tables with tiny lamps as she sang some of her jazzier numbers as well as the night’s one cover, “Fly Me to the Moon.” (Coincidentally, Kaye Ballard’s original 1954 recording of that standard was named to the National Recording Registry just a few hours after Raye’s show ended.)

As blithe as most of the show was, Raye did build a serious-as-a-heart-attack section into the setlist at the two-thirds point, with a song dealing with rape, directly followed by what amounts to her suicide prevention song, “I Know You’re Hurting,” from the new album. She conceded that this stretch amounted to a left turn — enough so that she gave voice to the idea, at least, of just canceling it for the night. “This song I’m gonna sing for you, I’m not in the mood to sing tonight, to be honest,” she said, deep into a roundabout intro. “As you can tell, I’m like avoiding… Oh, God. Should we just skip it?” It seemed like an honestly awkward moment, not just setup schtick. “The subject of this song is horrible… and I’m gonna say it very plainly is sexual assault … horrible words, but they are words that I have decided I’m gonna stop apologizing for saying out loud, because they are a reality for so many of us.”

Once she committed to the mood change, tears came easily, as she said “some evil person doesn’t get to walk into my life and tell me that I’m now gonna be a depressed person. Some evil person doesn’t get to walk into my life and tell me, ‘You are now gonna be half of the person that you once were.’ What? Some evil person gets to walk into your life and tell you, ‘You’re not gonna trust human beings anymore. You’re gonna bring this trauma into every relationship you’re in’? No, I rebuke that…I know it’s easier said than done, but we’ve got one little life and we’ve gotta try. So I just wanna encourage anyone to fight with every blood cell that you have to not let that evil person steal another second of the person that you were born to be.”

A wrenching number like that needs a twin, for the purposes of live performance, since there are few songs in any repertoire that make for a natural segue out of sexual assault. She has come up with one, in “I Know You’re Hurting,” which, similarly, would be an awkward entree into a setlist without some setup. Claiming that, statistically, “somebody in this audience might have been considering giving up altogether,” she went into preacher mode, doing her best to break down barriers between show biz, therapy and church: “I wanna tell you that there is no one else on this planet like you. You are uniquely and divinely you. I wanna tell you, you’re not here by accident. When I say here, I don’t mean this concert, I mean this earth.” The song itself was nearly anticlimactic after this sermon, but only nearly — she has the goods, obviously, to bring these messages home in song as well as speech, as a diva-empath.

The final distinct segment of the night seemed designed almost as an escapist response (like, literally, with “Escapist” being the encore’s title) to the more emotionally fraught segment that had come before. A sign bearing the letters “R-A-Y-E” descended, with the “Y” slipping off to be replaced with a “V,” for an EDM-style last act that included a medley of dance numbers she’s led or been a featured guest on. Mindless jumping in the air never felt more justified than it did coming so soon after Raye was invoking sexual trauma and self-harm. This is a woman who knows her emotional dynamics… and also her musical ones, as a night that began with a lot of very crowd-pleasing retro elements came to a conclusion in a distinctly 21st-century mode.

Good humor was still the overall hallmark of the evening, those couple of more harrowing bits notwithstanding. In one moment as a song was starting up, she called out a vocal flub we might otherwise have missed, remarking: “I just went flat there. It was upsetting. I hurt my own feelings.”

Even in lines that seemed a bit more rehearsed, there was a winning candor, as she announced, “I’m gonna go get changed now,” as she exited for her one costume switch, from red to equally curvy black. At another point, she admitted, “Ladies and gentlemen, this next section of the show has been called the weakest section of the show,” setting up a sign-holding bit in which she demanded that everyone get their cameras ready before finally holding up a QR code for purchasing the new album. (“We may be in a lovely, sold out Greek theater, but I am still an independent artist with an album to sell. Take a picture.”)

She even offered self-commentary on some of her musical choices. Nearing the end of “Nightingale Lane,” Raye told the crowd she would be opting for a subtle finish. “I’m gonna land soft, I think… We’ll do some big stuff later.” Thanks for the warning/promise! It was the opposite during her EDM medley, as she said: “Dare I say, there is no moment more perfect than a musical climax, and ladies and gentlemen, guess what? We have one heading straight for us!” Maybe you had to be there, but these sorts of asides are a big part of her charm, finding a way to bring the audience with her as if they are insiders on exactly how she’s plotting the night from moment to moment. It’s a fun way to spread the joy, to wryly let the crowd know exactly what’s coming, when what’s coming is guaranteed to be fairly awesome any which way.

Raye has a great vocal trick that’s worth pointing out, that she first pulled out at the end of “Winter Woman,” then reprised later on. She breaks into a pure soprano, as if to add some kind of emotional formality to her feelings for a moment, and then she goes back into her more natural-sounding jazz or soul-singer voice. It’s a show of prowess, to be sure, and also serves to let you know that things could get operatic but she intends to stay down-to-earth.

The audience on her second and last night at the Greek got to witness a few scenes that were special for the last night of the tour, some of them loose and one more monumental. The sense that the evening might have a goofier atmosphere at times was evident right at the start, as Raye stood in front of the red curtain and some of her compatriots showered her with copious confetti, which apparently is not a normal part of the act. “You bastards,” she exclaimed, chortling as she dashed behind the curtain to somehow get it all out of her hair. She got back at them later on during the Jazz Club segment by narrating a section in which she described her horn players tickling and stroking one another, which they were obliged to follow. “It’s the last night, so anything goes,” she declared.

The surprise was on her, again, when Hans Zimmer emerged to play the synth on their highly orchestral collaboration from the new album, “Click Clack Symphony.” Her shock at the sudden appearance of the Zimmer and his gear was clearly not feigned, and the famed film composer — a former rock band member who now does the occasional symphonic tour — seemed to enjoy being Hams Zimmer for a night nearly as much as she was ebullient to have him.

“Click Clack Symphony” is the busiest song on a very busy album. “This Music May Contain Hope” is almost hilariously overstuffed, with so many different ideas happening from song to song and even from measure to measure that it can almost feel more like a prog-rock album than standard pop-R&B fare. You might feel like you have to take a rest between numbers, as Raye determines to make what is only her second album into her “Sgt. Pepper’s,” almost, already. But given the choice between too many ideas or too few, which is where just about everybody else lands these days, it’s not hard to figure out where to cast your lot.

Rewards for that creative ambition, as well as acknowledgements of her sheer vocal talent, are sure to follow. We might as well call this her “Pre-Grammys Tour 2026.” But a concert like this makes you wish there was such a thing as Grammys for live performance as well as recordings. Because until you’ve seen how captivating and in control she is on stage at this early stage in her career, you can’t really take the full measure of why Raye really may belong in the company of the greats who’ve come before her — something that 12,000 people who just saw her at the Greek are keenly aware of now. That she comes off as a BFF rather than prima donna may be the cherry on top that makes her one for the ages. “My plan is, fingers crossed, to be doing this till I’m at least 76,” she declared at show’s end, “so hopefully in-between then and now I’ll get to see your beautiful face again.” Here’s vouching that the 50-year plan looks to have some validity.

Raye had two opening acts for the tour, Amma and Absolutely, who, concertgoers quickly learned if they didn’t know already, are two of Raye’s three younger sisters. Both are operating in their own distinct stylistic niches, both engaging performers. When the three of them appear together at the climax of Raye’s set, for the aptly named “Joy,” you might think for a minute you’re seeing one of the most engaging sister act this side of Angelica, Eliza and Peggy.

Setlist for Raye at the Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, May 13, 2026:

Girl Under the Grey Cloud
I Will Overcome
Where Is My Husband!
Skin & Bones
Beware… the South London Lover Boy
Winter Woman
Hard Out Here
Genesis, pt. ii
Fly Me to the Moon
Worth It
Nightingale Lane
Ice Cream Man
I Know You’re Hurting
Life Boat
Oscar Winning Tears
Click Clack Symphony (with Hans Zimmer)
Prada/Secrets/Bed/You Don’t Know Me/Black Mascara
Joy (with Amma and Absolutely)
(encore)
Escapism