Photo by Neil Van (2016).
As regulars of the Toronto music scene slowly poured into the Drake for a sold out party to celebrate the release of Ralph’s debut album a DJ played a varied mix of music, mostly future disco tracks, to get the crowd in the mood for dancing. When Toronto born singer Ralph (real name Raffa Weyman) came out the tiny packed club erupted into cheers. A bashful Ralph talked about how excited she was to be playing and started out her set with Crocodile Tears, an empowering won’t take shit future feminine anthem. After the song she made a crack about how if you follow her on Twitter then you will see a funny story about who that song is about before quickly saying with a wink that all her songs are clearly fictional.
The show was short and sweet with Ralph playing the entirety of her self-titled album that came out only on March 3rd. While her sound can generally be described as synth pop, each member of her band brought their own style with guitar playing more dream pop influenced like on a Beach House track, bass lines that were straight up RnB and drumming that was fast and fun making even the slower songs extremely danceable.
Ralph claimed that the song Something More was written for Aziz Ansari and asked the crowd that if they had a connection to him to please reach out on behalf of her. The song sounded something that Porches wished he could have created musically but with Ralph’s singing voice much superior to Aaron Maines’. The show ended with her big single Tease that has been getting tons of attention and making waves across Canada. The set left the audience dying to hear more but Ralph knew just how to keep us on the edge. While she didn’t mention it Ralph will be playing at this year’s CBC Music Fest one of the best deals of the summer as you see tons of amazing acts for a super low cost. I interviewed Ralph when her album dropped asking what she was up to this year and was able to successfully avoid talking about the big festival announcement that occurred a single day afterwards.
As the show ended some a fan starting throwing flowers up on stage with a few hitting her as she sarcastically asked who the hell was throwing shit at her before switching to genuine gratitude for everyone coming out. Stay tuned to Live in Limbo as my interview with her will be coming out soon.
