Live Review: Raleigh Ritchie – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London 28/11/2018

After taking a short hiatus for the past year or so, Raleigh Ritchie was back to show off new music to old time fans and hopefully some new faces as well! Just having played Birmingham and Manchester before tonight, it was London’s turn to welcome Raleigh back with open arms!

Shepherds Bush Empire was buzzing with excitement from the get go, support tonight was from singer/songwriter Sasha Keable whose depressing melodies filled every corner of the venue this evening. Even with such slow and melancholy tracks the crowd were absolutely loving every minute of it, Sasha had a huge grin on her face for the whole set as there were a few fans of herself in the crowd who were singing each song back to her. Sasha Keable’s new track “That’s the Shit” got a huge reaction, this off the cuff slow jam got the whole venue bumping and grooving; a huge round of applause greeted her just after before Sasha hyping the audience up by saying “you aren’t ready for Raleigh’s show later” before she departed the stage.

As the lights dimmed and the momentum built the man himself took to the stage donned in a astronauts helmet, striding up the microphone before smashing into huge fan favourite ‘Stronger Than Ever’ which instantly set the venue alight with the crowd heaving left and right for the verses, jumping up and down during the choruses; just loving the return of Raleigh Ritchie!!

The action didn’t stop there either as Raleigh quickly jumped into ‘Werld Is Mine’ and then the beat bumping ‘On Fire’ which once again got the crowd moving like lions around prey. This animalistic nature continued throughout the whole show, as it was a rare occasion that Raleigh gave us a break to breath before smashing back into an enormous banger!! Half way through the set we were taken back to the ‘Mind The Gap’ EP with both ‘Sicko’ and ‘Liability’ which somehow got an even bigger reaction than had previously been seen!

Just before departing the stage, Raleigh treated us to another fan fav, ‘Bloodsport’ really turned up the heat in the Empire tonight, the long-time fan’s in the crowd singing back the words religiously. As soon as he left the stage it was clear the crowd were not happy with that at all, deafening chants of “One More Song” and “Raleigh, Raleigh, Raleigh” could have been heard on the other side of London. Of course, Raleigh couldn’t leave us without a proper goodbye; playing new song ‘Time in a Tree’ was a good starter getting the crowd rewarmed up before giving us the main and desert in one with ‘The Greatest’ which as you can probably tell blew the roof off the venue!!

With a new album hopefully on the way, we can’t wait to hear any new music from this incredibly talented young man; also some more live shows in the first half of the new year wouldn’t go a miss either…

Word and Photography by Joe Dick