The North Carolina sextet Delta Rae should be very famous soon, they have everything people love, big voices that carry their cathartic songs, uplifting and super catchy melodies, a stage enthusiasm that stays in the family (three of them are siblings), pretty vocal harmonies over pretty vocal harmonies and good looking people at the top of this!
They bring an uplifting gospel vibe in the middle of their harmonies and basically all their folky-happy tunes are sung with an extraordinary excitement and enthusiasm.
Their set at the El Rey on Saturday night was also beautiful and fun to watch, there wasn't a dull moment as they even performed a song unplugged, in the middle of the crowd – and it was only the fourth one – and they brought on stage a group of young high school singers (who had won an online contest ) to sing their back-up harmonies so perfectly, they could have given a lesson to the most experienced church choral.
With two talented female vocalists sharing the lead vocals and two equally talented male vocalists, the songs, which often had a poppy side, were sung with multi-voice soulful harmonies, a classical touch on the keys, southern percussion and a twang-gospel touch. The whole show seemed to be a series of gospel-inspired stomp anthems with a sound almost too pretty at times.
One sure thing, they had a great stage presence, great and friendly, as they were explaining some of their songs before singing them, like ‘Watcha Thinkin Bout Baby’, which was about Ian Holljes’ cool lawyer girlfriend always wondering what his introvert boyfriend was thinking about, or the sung-in-falsetto ‘Forgive The Children We Once Were’ which was about being bullied and being a bully at school.
The vocals were tremendous at times, strong and flawless, the songs were often all-voices of a loud and raging storm of harmonies, varying from country to gospel or both at the same time, evoking Ray Charles, with a certain glee-like treatment. However, their white-church gospel was sometimes precious, Bon-Iver-precious, and may be a little too clean at times?
I was thinking, you have to messed up a little bit,… and they did! Kind of, they did it their own way, by bringing up this high school kid crowd on stage twice, and completely losing it. With all that church-inspired music I was wondering whether they were one of these Christian rock bands, but oh no, no,… I got my answer right away, as they suddenly came up with an exposé about their mother being a gay rights advocate, and a pro-marriage-equality song, ‘Chain on Love’, that they cleverly played just before their Fleetwood Mac’s matching-title cover ‘The Chain’, which was fitting quite well in the middle of their own harmonies. Suddenly, their coolness barometer went to the roof, and didn’t fall down as their next tunes were the chain-gang stomping 'Bottom of The River' and 'If I Loved You', an anthem celebrating Not loving the person you thought was the perfect one!
They were promoting their summer release (and debut album) ‘Carry The Fire’, and they basically played most of the songs on it, plus other ones, in front if a very enthusiastic crowd who knew all the lyrics; they came back for an encore to sing two songs and in particular ‘Fire’, an angry-fury-bitch-ass-kicking blues anthem, which was messing up a little more their clean style.
Without sounding like the Montréal band, Delta Rae looked like a sort of Arcade Fire of the south, carrying a strong Americana tradition, and if Mumford and sons can do SNL, they can do it too.
Setlist
Morning Comes
Holding On To Good
Cold Day
Watcha Thinkin Bout Baby
Hey Hey Hey
Unlike Any Other
Forgive The Children We Once Were
Chain on Love
The Chain (Fleetwood Mac cover)
Bottom of The River
If I Loved You
Rain down on me
My Whole Life Long
Dance In The Graveyards
Encore
Is There Anyone Out There
Fire