Secondhand Setlists

The year 2026 continues to introduce me to new-ish venues here in the City of Angels: Grace Ives and Bby Eco at Oblivion in Highland Park, Oli XL smack in the center of Hollywood at Casita, and this week, Rose Gray at Pacific Electric near Chinatown. At a time when music spaces, like publications and theaters, keep closing, it’s always a pleasure to see some new ones spring up in their place. Here’s hoping they will all last…

I appreciate that Pacific Electric sported an outdoor area that’s easily accessible – most venues lack one, and an LA space that comes to mind with one, the Fonda, has it located up multiple flights of stairs. At Pacific Electric, if you needed a quick breather (entirely reasonable for a pop setlist with a song called “Wet & Wild”) relief lay just through the bar. In its interior, the venue felt a little carnival-like, with the red-light accents surrounding the stage. The main room was exactly the right size to still feel intimate from the back, where my friend Will and I stood, and there was a balcony area for those who weren’t blessed with our stature. Overall, I liked the venue and would be happy to see another show there.

I failed to arrive in time to see the opener, Zoe Gitter (I’m sorry, but I’ve seen a surplus of DJs over the last nine months and will definitely see more with Pride Month coming up), but I’m sure she did a fab job. My ‘opening act’ of the night involved running into multiple people I knew at this show, including a lovely couple as well as another friend out celebrating their friend’s 30th birthday, complete with matching jerseys: “It’s the only time I’ll do such a thing, sorry to any bachelorette’s that I’m invited to.” Encountering so many dear companions before the show began solidified my conviction that Rose Gray would deliver.

From our vantage in the back, Will and I turned to the stage as the lights went down, the universal sign that something’s coming. Naturally, I looked to the front, scanning for signs of her entrance. Suddenly, Will taps me on the shoulder and goes “Oh my god,” and I turn to my right to see the lady of the hour entering on the shoulders of two men. She wore bejeweled glasses and matching tulle gloves complete with a huge mane of red hair, looking exactly the part for this circus-esque space.

Like her fellow Brit PinkPantheress, Rose Gray is a studied student of the music she makes. For one, so much of her music draws from, interpolates, or simply reminds me of sounds I love in pop music, including:

• The Eiffel 65 interpolation on “Just Two”
• The “Smalltown Boy” synth line in “I Don’t Speak French”
• The beginnings of the verses in “Free” sound like the chorus of Mary J Blige’s “All Night Long”
• The “Annie are you okay?” line inclusion, as well as frenetic tempo, on “Wet & Wild”
• “Switch” could have been featured on Ryan Hemsworth’s Secret Songs Soundcloud from the mid-2010s
• Having a song called “God is a DJ”
• While they are too close in release dates to be direct influences of each other, “Angel of Satisfaction” with its dramatic, string-laden intro eerily sounds like Jade’s own “Angel of My Dreams”

To me, Gray exists as an amalgamation of pop music thus far. While I don’t necessarily think she’s reinventing the wheel, she’s got enough solid hooks and pop references that more than make up for things that might be seen as too derivative.

To solidify her case as an act to watch, Gray performed for an hour-and-a-half by herself, from “her bedroom” as she lovingly described her stage set up, complete with a clothing rack and lip-shaped loveseat. She ripped through over 20 songs and kept that mic on, spitting her pop-rap verses just as easily as she floated into her operatic register. No dancers ever appeared onstage, but Gray never stood still herself; in fact, in another pop homage (intentional or not), she adopted the classic arm pumping moves Charli XCX has been using since 2016. The few props available she used to their full potential, whether it involved going spread eagle on the loveseat or donning a fabulous leather coat for from her garment rack for “Just Be Bodies,” one of multiple unreleased treat for fans.

If I had any critique for Ms. Gray, it would be to milk things for a little bit more. For example, the sequined, arm-length gloves looked fabulous from the crowd’s perspective, yet they got tossed aside after the first song. The (straight? he was there with a girl and seemingly not in a faghag way – allyship!) guy next to me chuckled when I shouted “Keep them on!” Later on in the set, she cut one of my favorites, the bouncy “Switch,” entirely in half; “oh for heaven’s sake” indeed! However, my gripes aside, these notes came early in the set, which went on long enough that they ceased to really matter. When the set’s that good, the shortcomings just look human rather than unrehearsed.

Again, tearing through over 20 songs in an-hour-and-thirty demonstrated not just stamina and showmanship but a deep catalog, too. I, admittedly, got on the Gray-train in the lead up to last year’s Louder Please, so a song like “Ecstasy” provided an unexpected treat for my poseur ass. However, the most loyal fans likely still received a surprise with various unreleased tracks she played, whether it was “Club to Your Arms” (one of her “favorite songs” she’s written), “God Is A DJ” (mashed up brilliantly with Madonna’s “Music”), or “London Calls,” which closed out the show. Ending the track on an unreleased track showed some balls, and if you’ll bear me one more comparison, it reminded me of how Rahim Redcar, better known as Christine and the Queens, ended his Chris tour not with the big hits, but with a bonus track from his first album called “Intranquillité.” A good popstar takes risks, too, and Rose Gray checked this box as well.

My personal highlights of the evening involved two moments. One of those was “Everything Changes,” a song so beautiful both sonically and thematically it brought me nearly to tears. “Everything changes / But I won’t, I won’t” she pledged, and in those three-ish minutes, it felt entirely believable. I’d trust her to show me a thrilling night out in her beloved Hackney Wick, and the track lent itself perfectly to a transition into “April,” who might be the embodiment of the sentiment expressed in the latter song: pure, reliable, a good damn time. Another demonstration of a popstar’s mettle lies in their ability to make songs click for fans in a live setting. Up until this show, “April” never really landed with me. But in-person, with its promise of being led to the dance floor and hearts on one’s sleeve, plus the way Gray just ascends into the word ‘April,’ this song made my eyes similarly misty.

Taking stock of the audience, Gray noted how her previous LA show at the Mint boasted maybe 200 people; this May, she saw her crowd essentially triple in size, something she remarked on with gratitude as the tour came to a close in LA. If she keeps her shows as tight as this, I expect her fanbase to grow and her to sell out a larger venue whenever she eventually makes her return.

Here’s hoping it won’t be at the Novo or Wiltern though…