Rachel Chinouriri Fires Up Crowd — Including Adele — at LA Show

About halfway through the first of two headlining sets at Los Angeles’ Fonda Theatre, Rachel Chinouriri invited the sold-out audience to close their eyes and think of something that brings them a sense of peace. For her, she explained, it was the city of Hereford, the serene U.K. location where she recorded last year’s breakthrough debut “What a Devastating Turn of Events,” a sharply written collection of pop songs that explored an emotional spectrum of heartbreak and self-realization.

At the Fonda on Monday night, the South London native wielded a command over the crowd that’s rare for such a new artist. Throughout the 75-minute set, the 26-year-old instructed audience members — which counted Adele, a fan of the singer who sent her flowers earlier this year — to tell the person next to them that they love them, to whoop instead of applaud, to scream the lyrics to “The Hills” and “Never Need Me.” As she threaded a sonic arc from thrash-adjacent pop-punk to downtrodden, quiet balladry, Chinouriri led a communal experience that was as much bravado as it was contemplative, marking the arrival of a star who’s only still getting her footing.

Chinouriri acknowledged the challenging road she’s traveled to arrive at this point, which sees her just past the halfway point of her “All I Ever Asked For Was a North American Tour.” Much of it is public record: last fall, she was supposed to tour in support of Remi Wolf, but had to cancel the dates because of the “financial strain on touring.” But Chinouriri has consistently used setbacks as motivation, if her music doesn’t make that obvious, and her stock has grown since — earlier this year, for instance, she opened for Sabrina Carpenter on 20 of the European dates on her “Short n’ Sweet” tour, chased by the “Little House” EP in April.

Her show at the Fonda felt like something of an arrival, a performance that conveyed breadth and vision. Chinouriri is a gifted singer who can traipse from a soft whimper to a throaty roar, and she began by leaning on the latter with renditions of “Garden of Eden” and “Cold Call.” Alemeda, who brought out Warner Records brass to the venue for her opening set, filled in for the Cat Burns duet “Even,” while Chinouriri asked patrons to lift their drinks in the air as a segue into “Dumb Bitch Juice.”

But Chinouriri truly excels in her ability to use songwriting as a method to confront her most difficult moments, and the mood shifted diaristic as she sang of losing her niece on “Robbed” and getting friend-zoned on “So My Darling,” her first-ever song that she wrote at 17 years old. As she hit this portion of the show, she sat on the stage floor, a silence hanging in the air as she took breaths between notes.

Just as soon, she was on her feet, stepping off the stage onto the venue floor for “Never Need Me,” the evening’s final song and the one that put her on the map after going viral last year. Earlier in the night, she acknowledged her position as a Black woman making indie-pop and the unique space she occupies. She encouraged other Black women in the audience to follow suit, to ignore stereotypes and embrace who they are. “You can be anything you want,” she said. That much was true, as Chinouriri made it clear.