Before she got into her set, she asked the audience to introduce itself by everyone yelling their name, as she said she thought it was unfair that everyone knew her name but she knew no one in the audience.
“Let the world know you are here,” Gray said. “One, two, three, what’s your name? Nice to meet you.”
Gray, born Natalie Renee McIntyre, started singing in her 20s.
She released her debut album “On How Life Is,” in 1999, and received the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her single “I Try” in 2001.
“I Try” was also nominated for Song of the Year that same year.
Before the event, IU graduate student Leslie Winter said she mostly only knew Gray from “I Try.”
“Her voice is so hauntingly beautiful, I know it will be a really great show,” Winter said. “Her voice is just that good.”
Vince Penick is the lead singer for Valise, a Texas-based band that opened for Gray. This is Valise’s second week of three and a half touring with Gray from Arizona to New York.
Penick said he was changing the name of his band’s debut album from “Young Bloomer” to “Young Bloomington” during last night’s show.
He crooned over beats provided by their drummer, who played a muted trumpet with one hand and the cymbals with the other for part of Valise’s set.
The audience expectantly waited for Gray throughout the opening act and sporadically cheered during the set change that signaled her appearance onstage.
Gray, swaying and twirling the stand and taking breaks from vocals to swish around her skirts with both hands like a flamenco dancer, took the microphone with her as she moved during her set.
Her signature smokey voice spoke for itself as she invited the audience to dance with her. She and the band’s soul and blues groove had every person in the audience bobbing their head or swaying to the sound.
Clara Young, a Macy Gray fan since her rise to fame, said she has all of Gray’s CDs and has almost worn them out from playing them repeatedly at top volume in her car.
“I just think she’s unique with that raspy voice,” Young said. “No two things sound alike.”
