On May 3, Jensen McRae kicked off her Praying For Your Downfall tour at Philadelphia’s World Cafe Live.
Opener Lauren Juzang performed a sweet set, alone onstage with just an orange guitar and a big personality. Juzang’s delicate tone, enthusiastic energy, and clear love for performing were a pleasure to watch and a fitting warmup for McRae.
McRae has one of my favorite voices of all time, a resonant and crystal-clear alto. It was even more powerful in person, especially combined with her poignant lyrics.
The set in Philadelphia deftly wove covers and older songs in with tracks off McRae’s latest record, I Don’t Know How But They Found Me! Standouts from the new release included “Savannah,” “Mother Wound,” and “Praying for Your Downfall,” while “My Ego Dies at the End,” “Dead Girl Walking,” and “White Boy” served as representatives from her earlier catalog. The crowd went wild over the first chords of “Bad Day,” a Daniel Powter cover. All together, the setlist spans a wide variety of subject matter; family, love, forgiveness, anger. It’s impressive, then, that the night was so cohesive.
Halfway through her set, McRae announced that it was time for the “surprise songs” – a nod to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour tradition. Fittingly, the surprises began with a cover of a Swift song, “Guilty as Sin.” Upon request from a fan in the crowd, McRae then performed the unreleased “One More Cowboy,” a tune about her penchant for dating actors and her family’s disapproval.
My personal favorite McRae song, “Let Me Be Wrong,” came at the tail end of the set. McRae noted that she’d been inspired to write the song after touring with MUNA, witnessing the emotion in their performance of “Silk Chiffon,” and deciding she wanted a song that represented the same “unbridled joy.” It worked, though there was certainly no shortage of joy throughout the rest of the evening.
McRae is confident and calm onstage, bantering easily with the audience and cracking clever jokes. Accompanying her were her brother Holden McRae, Kevin Burke, Will Easley, and Griffin Emerson, or as McRae lovingly referred to them, “these bigshot men behind me.”
McRae’s career has taken off after several of her songs have gone viral on TikTok, and the crowd reflected that; young people in long white skirts and hair bows went feral for “Massachusetts,” McRae’s most recent internet hit. But there was also no shortage of die-hard fans, faithfully singing every lyric to every song.
McRae is a true powerhouse, and I’ve been patiently awaiting her meteoric rise for years now. If you have the chance to see her, do it now – while you can still get tickets.
