You assume, when a star is born, you might notice – that the molecules nearby will vibrate a little differently. Sometimes, though, these glad events don’t quite register. Madonna’s first-ever UK gig at Manchester’s Hacienda in 1984 by some accounts had very little of the play of electron activity; she just danced and mimed.
Ryn Weaver’s UK live debut – the up’n’coming San Diego-born singer’s first proper headline set – has something of this indecision to it. The seriously tipped 22-year-old wafts on at this tiny basement club in a boho swirl of long hair and fringed black shawl; an earpiece intermittently flaps around her head, its wire tangled in her tresses.
On the one hand, events occur tonight that might be worked up into legend. The place is packed with rabid early adopters who even know the words to the songs that aren’t OctaHate, Weaver’s almighty buzz track of 2014. The fans spend the evening shrieking their love at close quarters, and invade the stage at the end in what looks like spontaneous delight.
On the other hand, it is sometimes hard to discern what all that buzz was about. Weaver’s digital-skewing 21st-century tunes are being played by a regular-Joe live band, and some of their cutting edge is lost. There is little of the brooding mystery here of a Banks or a Lorde, and more off-kilter moments than Weaver’s swift rise might have led you to expect.
OctaHate snowballed swiftly into meme-dom, thanks in no small part to Weaver’s associations with A-list songwriter Benny Blanco (Katy Perry, Maroon 5), Charli XCX and Scandi-producer Cashmere Cat. It was also really, really good – a breakup anthem with a marimba hook. Thanks to OctaHate, the woman born Erin Wüthrich has become one of the most-anointed American female pop singers of the past year – since Lana Del Rey, give or take. This paper flagged her up in January; she has been on 2015 watch lists from Time to the Huffington Post after a 2014 studded with excitable first interviews, given to blogs and Billboard alike. She’s writing some of the new Gwen Stefani album with Charli XCX. As with Lana Del Rey, there has been the suspicion that Weaver has arrived a little too fully formed. Actually, she just knew Benny Blanco and, it turns out, she wrote her own stuff too.
Weaver’s job tonight is to put flesh on her myth, in advance of the release of her debut album, The Fool, due out in the US next week (the UK has to wait till August). And she does. Songs like Stay Low – previously heard on her Promises EP – have both burnished swagger and nagging melody. Weaver’s vocals are elastic and delivered with control.
Runaway, the opening track of both album and gig, is packed with drama on record, but just a little undetailed in the confines of the venue: it’s mostly just Weaver and the drums. For all her bone structure, she is endearingly goofy, lurching about the stage and clutching on to her mic stand as though for dear life.
An hour spent in her company reveals something of an American analogue to Florence Welch, with big, beefy drums to the fore and ample mainstream appeal to her choruses. Pierre and Promises are two of these sorts of songs, where Weaver flaps her hands, staggers about and sustains notes. On record, they boast layers of vocals and all manner of fun audio trickery. On stage tonight, they’re still big tunes, but the sole keyboard player cannot coax an entire studio out of his instrument, and the band sound jobbing rather than inspired.
Traveling Song, by contrast, is about Weaver’s quirky inspiration of a grandfather who recently died; a track that seems to have escaped the attention of the on-board producers. Basically it remains a folk song of sorts, which she sings with a mannered but convincing vibrato. Grandpa Wüthrich, apparently, told Weaver to shoot for the stars. “He was magic and mischief and love for his craft,” Weaver enthuses, her words coming a cappella now, almost in a rap, “And he told me that I was Apollo 13…” Perhaps not quite a star yet, then, but heading for that vicinity.
