Skylar Grey comes front and center with LA performance at the Roxy

November 2, 2011 by Bill Palmer

by Bill Palmer

Last month I told you that Skylar Grey is the future of pop music, and last night at the Roxy she took another step toward proving it. She’s still best known for songwriting and guest vocalist contributions to other people’s hits: I Need A Doctor. Coming Home. Love The Way You Lie. You know the list by now. But her own solo material is percolating ahead of the eventual release of her debut album. And aside from a few minutes in which she sat down at the piano to remind people of the places in which they’ve heard her collaborative work, her Roxy set was all about strutting her own stuff.

Pouncing around the stage, belting out rockers like Weirdo and Dance Without You, she uses her lyrics to tell the story of her own past life, the one where she didn’t have a tenth this much confidence, the one she’s so emphatically divorced herself from that she even changed her name in order to help change her mindset. Weirdo still sounds like it’s eventually going to be the biggest hit of the bunch, but the focus for now is officially on the mid-tempo lead single Invisible, which not coincidentally deals with the same subject matter. I saw her perform largely the same batch of songs this summer at a venue out in the suburbs. I was impressed with her performance then. I’m more impressed now. The confidence and polish are growing. The Roxy was sold out last night and packed with people, some of whom knew the words to some of her songs which haven’t even been released. I’m still not sure when her debut album Invinsible is set for release, but I stand by my assessment that she’s the future. It looks like more people are starting to come to the same conclusion.