Rina Sawayama gives a couple of live performances of “Hold the Girl”

How is a new single out, but we’re getting releases of live performances of the last one!?

Mess.

Rina has performed “Hold the Girl” (the third single from her album of the same title) a couple of times over the past few weeks. Meanwhile “Phantom” is like ‘Now, why am I in it?’. Being released, but receiving nothing other than a tweet for fans to stream it. “Phantom” shoulda been held off as a single until the end of the year, but I’m not getting into that again.

Rina performed “Hold The Girl” at the Outside Lands Festival and for Vevo in a very nice lil’ studio setup. I would have assumed that she also performed “Hold The Girl” at the Summer Sonic Festival in Japan, but I’m not 100% sure if she did. It’s just nice to see a Rina single get some form of promo. Even if everything seems rushed and slapdash as fuck.

Rina Sawayama performing “Hold the Girl” at the Outside Lands Festival

Rina Sawayama performing “Hold the Girl” for Vevo

I’m warming to “Hold the Girl”, but it’s still not a song I voluntarily listen to, or feel compelled to play. However, I do feel that the live performances we’ve gotten of it so far have been better than the live performances of “This Hell” - none of which really captured the energy of the song.

I would really like to see Rina get the chance to perform at the BRITs. Giving her that opportunity is the absolute LEAST the British Phonographic Industry could do after that bullshit they pulled over making Rina ineligible for a BRIT or Mercury Prize back in 2020, due to her not being ‘British’ enough.

I can’t remember the last time I watched the BRITs. Despite the name of the show, US acts who are invited to perform often end up sucking all of the air out of the show, and UK artists get pushed to the side unless they’re a Dua Lipa or an Ed Sheeran. And even then, they still get pushed to the side. The BRITs should be a platform and a chance to showcase a range of UK talent, but it’s not always the case - which is also what made the whole Rina situation even messier. The BPI wanna talk about British talent and supporting it, but they don’t even do that to the degree at which they should.

But that’s award shows for you.

HENNYWAY.

The point I was trying to make, is that I think “Hold the Girl” would make for a great performance at a big award show with a full production. There’s a sense of scope that I get from the music video and the live performances I’ve seen, and there are so many directions that Rina could go with performances of “Hold the Girl”. Rina could go really big and have a whole bunch of dancers, which would really heighten the choreography. Or she could just strip everything right the way back. When I initially talked about “Hold the Girl” I said that I would have quite liked the song without the 2-step drums, and this could be a performance concept in itself. Just Rina singing a ballad version of the song backed by a full orchestra.

Rina’s second studio album Hold the Girl releases on September 16th. There is a special blue vinyl edition of the album which is available exclusive to Rina’s Spotify top listeners, and it features an alternate album cover. See. Even Rina knows that the original Hold the Girl album cover is some doo-doo. And there will also be 2 more Vevo performances to come. Between the speed at which Rina is releasing singles and the album being imminent, I’d bet the the 2 other Vevo performances are of songs from the album. It would not make sense to hold back performances of “This Hell” and “Catch Me in the Air”.

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💿 Rina reviews: This Hell | Sawayama | Rina
📀 Rina revision: Sawayama (The Random J Pop Revised Expanded Edition)
🗄️ Rina shit: That time Rina performed This Hell on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon | That time Rina performed at Coachella | That time Rina got shafted because of racism and xenophobia | That time Rina met Hikaru Utada | That time Rina released a gay anthem and gave it an awful music video