In a top hat, framed in black and white, Róisín Murphy stares down the lens. Facing away from the audience, she peers into a camera on a mount; the resulting image is beamed via an imposing screen at the back of the stage. With the 10,000-strong Alexandra Palace crowd behind her, she scarcely blinks as an insistent house beat burbles away.
She slips off her jacket, runs both hands down her neck, her five-piece band churning confidently through the lithe funk of ‘Can’t Replicate’. When the beat quickens, she flexes her muscles and poses like a prize fighter with arms aloft. “I need you,” the 50-year-old croons steadily, shadowboxing on the spot, never breaking eye contact, “so you don’t you keep it… I love you.”
It’s a message, perhaps, for the fans who’ve stayed with her on the rocky road to this undeniably impressive show, her biggest yet and a milestone in any artist’s career. Murphy takes a few songs to warm up, but when she does, the rewards are bountiful, as she complements her experimental dance-pop with an array of outlandish costume changes. Once she’s paired the knockabout ‘Ramalama (Bang Bang)’ with an oversized feathered headdress and the stoic ‘Something More’ with a funereal black veil, you’re well-reminded she’s been donning daft gear since Harry Styles was in his school uniform.
Six months have passed since the release of the former Moloko singer’s thrillingly weird, Balearic-flavoured sixth solo album ‘Hit Parade’. Murphy had long been a critical darling, but this record, which ebbs with a potent, insular magic, appeared destined to bring her to a whole new stratosphere of acclaim. Just over a week before it came out, though, she went viral for all the wrong reasons.
It emerged that, on her private Facebook page, the queer icon had described the use of puberty blockers in young trans people as “fucked, absolutely desolate, big pharma laughing all the way to the bank”. The screengrabbed comments duly blew up on Twitter, appalling vast swathes of her audience. Her label, Ninja Tune, reportedly ceased to market the album, an apology was issued, gigs were pulled and Róisín Murphy was quite literally cancelled.
The furore marked one of the stranger and more unexpected chapters in the culture wars. In fact, it seemed the only thing anyone could agree on was that ‘Hit Parade’ is an extraordinary album – one that became her biggest commercial success so far, reaching Number Five in the UK. And then this enormous show sold out back in December.
If the ensuing crowd is best described as “40-something and intense-looking” (there must be at least 5,000 pairs of thick-rimmed spectacles on display here), the music itself is, for the most part, transcendently light-hearted. Murphy dances cartoonishly to the crunching disco of ‘Incapable’, stopping just short of jazz hands, and grips the mic stand when she head-bangs to her ‘00s anthem ‘Overpowered’.
She says little, beyond repeated expressions of gratitude to the audience, but spends the encore doing press-ups in a floor-length sequinned gown; an image that seems to speak volumes about her determination to keep this show on the road. On tonight’s evidence, you wouldn’t bet against her.
Róisín Murphy played:
‘Pure Pleasure Seeker’
‘Dear Miami’
‘Simulation’
‘Overpowered’
‘CooCool’
‘The Universe’
‘You Knew’
‘The Time is Now’
‘Incapable’
‘Something More / Let Me Know’
‘Sing It Back / Murphy’s Law’
‘Can’t Replicate’
‘Ramalama (Bang Bang)’
‘Forever More’
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