Tei Shi Enchants a Sold Out Metro
It’s 7:30 on a snowy, Monday night in Chicago (the first snow there’s been in months), yet the house is still packed as Tei Shi saunters onto a dimly lit stage at The Metro. Starting off her diverse and captivating performance with her latest single “How Far,” Tei Shi instantly won over the sold out crowd with her angelic vocals. In the opening song particularly, the heavy bass of the song created a beautiful juxtaposition with her soft falsettos. For the second song of the evening, the 2014 single “See Me,” the stage brightened up, illuminating the singer and her band. After wrapping up this slower, hypnotizing tune, Tei Shi told the crowd “I’m super excited to be supporting MØ, this is our first night with her.”
Tei Shi starts off the third song of the night on the microphone situated stage right, adding some dynamics to her performance. Based on the lyrics of this new song, which alternate between “breathe, I breathe, I breathe” and “creep, I creep, I creep,” along with other verbs that fall into that rhyming pocket, this new one is most likely called “Creep,” which is also track three on Tei Shi’s upcoming album. After playing another recent single, “Keep Running,” which was released this year, Tei Shi mentions the new album. “This is all brand new music that we just started playing. It’s all going to be on the new album. We’re gonna do another one,” she says, introducing another bass-heavy tune with a catchy dance beat. Based on the lyrics, this new one appears to be track 9 from the album Crawl Space, called “Justify.” This track, along with all of the new ones, had such a cool vibe, and the band executed each song perfectly, especially Tei Shi with her incredible vocal performance.
After playing another new song, presumably “Crawl,” which is track 12 on the new record, Tei Shi transitioned back into an older song, 2013’s “Nevermind the End,” a building, layered track full of ethereal vocals. The set winded down with Tei Shi saying, “We’ve got two more songs for you guys,” and expressing her gratitude to the crowd before playing one more new song. The new song features a fierce chorus and lyrics that say “you don’t know me, but you say you do,” which could be track 7 on Crawl Space, “Say You Do.” The stellar set ended just before 8:15 with one of the singer’s best known tracks, “Bassically,” the crowd cheering with recognition as the opening notes rang out. Tei Shi’s amazing performance closed out with her giving 1000% during this last song….she absolutely sang her heart out during this song’s powerful and piercing chorus. As she and her band left the stage to massive applause, it’s clear that Tei Shi has warmed up the crowd on this cold, Chicago evening.
If you’re out at SXSW this week, Tei Shi will also be there, and you don’t want to miss her incredible live show. She also just announced some new tour dates in May (below), but you can keep up with all of her tour dates here.
You can also preorder Crawl Space here, which is going to be an amazing album, based on the live preview of some of the tracks. In the meantime, get ready for the album by watching the video for "Keep Running."