Sky Ferreira – The Scala, London 27/06/13

Sky Ferreira is incredible. Her fans, tonight at The Scala at least, are kind of awful. Sure, these days we’re relatively used to peering over raised iPhones in order to get a view of acts on stage, but Sky’s disciples have their heads so far up their own Instagram accounts that their apparent disinterest in actually listening to the gig is overwhelming and distracting.

The crowd seems as excited to tweet about the fact that they’re at the gig as they are to actually attend it. All of this is a shame as Ferreira is an excellent singer, and a solid performer. At times she seems less like a solo artist and more like an exceptionally charismatic front woman, but she stomps around the stage like an absolute pro.

Ferreira opens her set with ‘Lost in My Bedroom,’ and like the music video for the song, the stage is immediately bathed in an overwhelming amount of near seizure-inducing lighting effects. The crowd is a typical “London” one – quiet and reserved for the most part with a few crazies moshing in the front. The most exciting thing about watching Ferreira live is that she’s able to absolutely showcase her voice. Earlier releases like ‘One,’ and the absolutely incredible and under-appreciated ‘Sex Rules’ have a fair amount of auto-tuning in the mix but more recent tracks allow her voice to shine through, enabling you to hear the talent and the individuality of Ferreira’s raw and raspy vocals.

“Anyone who’s seen me before knows that I’m shit at introducing songs,” Sky says at one point, a fairly accurate assessment given her propensity to convulse into giggles when talking to the audience. But she manages to suffer through introducing a couple of incredible mid-tempo pop jams, the standouts of which are ‘Ain’t Your Right’ and ’24 Hours.’ Ferreira also impresses us when she rolls into ‘Sad Dream,’ a melancholy ballad that evokes an emotional poetry. The audience talks the entire time she’s singing, of course.

The crowd’s behavior leaves us wondering how much of tonight’s audience is actually comprised of her fans. We’re reminded of the last time we saw a performance here by a certain young blogosphere-popular starlet at Scala in November 2011, and although Ferreira has the talent that most would argue Lana del Rey lacks, she might be too trendy for her own good.

At the end of the night, Ferreira predictably concludes her set with ‘Everything’s Embarrassing,’ her live delivery of this being just as good – but not better than – the version off her EP. When it comes down to it, Ferreira has all of the goods to be the next Courtney Love or even the first Sky: the hair, the cheekbones, the attitude, and the voice. But the true test of Ferreira’s success as an artist will likely have nothing to do with whether she’s talented or a good live performer, but with whether her iPhone-happy fans will be able to tear themselves away from Candy Crush Saga long enough to buy her first album.

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk at White Heat in February 2013.