Macy Gray

It's all about charisma. And Macy Gray's got it.

Gray's presence dominated the stage at Toronto's Guvernment last Saturday, eclipsing the other 11 band members during a sold-out show.

So packed with throngs of people crowding every possible crevice of the venue, I figured it was only matter of time before someone somehow violated me. Squeezing to the front of the stage, over-excited fans were screaming and whistling as tech guys walked across they stage.

Gray prolonged her entrance to the stage, waiting until every band member was in place, right down to her back-up vocalists, who froze in identical diva-esque poses. It was all so dramatic, baby...

From the minute Gray sang the first strains of "Do Something" in her raw, raspy voice, the audience was hers. They screamed, they echoed, they sang... the only thing they didn't fall prey to was the tired old "Put your hands in the air... and wave them like you just don't care..." that came later on.

For the most of the show, Gray never stopped moving. Whether it was choreographed Supreme-like swaying with her back-up vocalists or waving around her arms ecstatically, Gray had a serious groove going on. The audience seemed to get into it. Even the poor bastards floating around the back got down wit their bad selves (excluding, of course, the usual idiots who just stand at the bar, drinking and yapping on their cell phones with their backs turned to the stage).

Macy Gray & Band

Gray sexed up her performance during "Sex-o-matic Venus Freak," grinding with the microphone, swiveling her ass about and masturbating the mike stand. Her voice during the song was sultry and gravelly, with just enough edge to make her emotion convincing.

Her music defies traditional classification by mixing hip-hop, R&B, soul, rock 'n roll and blues. But Gray herself is harder to describe, a mixture of bad-bitch-attitude and mellowness.

Gray sang most (if not all) the songs from On How Life Is,adding bluesy covers of "Que Sera, Sera" and "With a Little Help From My Friends" and some new material not on the current record.

Gray's band kept up the pace during the show, taking time to jam for the audience and prove themselves as more than just window-dressing. At one point, Gray stepped off the stage with her back-up vocalists and let her band take spotlight (no one took more than Gray's guitarist and former-Chili Pepper Arik Marshall).