Stormzy, Printworks, review: even our most charismatic rapper can't save virtual gigs from tedium

“We don’t need a crowd in the building, cos I’m in your building!” insisted Stormzy. Well, it might not have been technically true, but at least he was making an effort.

The dynamic, charismatic and hyper-energetic star worked hard to remind viewers of his virtual McDonald’s sponsored concert exactly why he is top of the Brit rap pack, the most popular and critically admired homegrown rapper this country has ever seen. But there is only so much impact you can make broadcasting from a big, empty soundstage with just a DJ and a couple of masked cameramen for company.

“McDonald’s live! Are we live? We’re live!” Stormzy declared uncertainly at the outset, with the slightly desperate expression of a man who’s not quite sure if his Zoom meeting has started. It’s a fixed grin and wild-eyed stare we all surely recognise after months of home working and dodgy facetime connections.

As a critic reviewing livestream concerts, I am torn between addressing the performance or the experience. I am sure we all applaud the intention, with venues shut, musicians unemployed and audiences stuck at home. Necessity being the mother of invention, last week, Billie Eilish broadcast from an Extended Reality set in Los Angeles, taking her audience on a journey from the bottom of the sea to the edge of the solar system. McDonald’s, broadcast from The Printworks in South London, gave us a dark, empty room decorated with a glowing double-arched logo and some moody lighting. As production values go, it was a fast-food approach to live music, recognisable ingredients dished up in a cheap approximation of the real thing. In fact, the whole set up was oddly disturbing. When Stormzy and his gospel choir got going, it felt like an act of worship at the church of the Big Mac.

If we are kind, we might consider that McDonald’s spent their money on the filling, rather than the presentation. Over a weekend of shows branded I’m Lovin it Live, mainstream pop stars including Lewis Capaldi, Jess Glynne, Olly Murrs, Craig David and Kaiser Chiefs grinned and gurned and worked up a sweat in the void. Viewers could watch free by downloading an app for ordering takeaway. My app wouldn’t play on my TV or laptop, so I was stuck with figures the size of thimbles exhorting me to get up off my sofa and sing along. Forgive me if I couldn’t quite get in the mood.

Stormzy evidently intuited such doubts. “I’m probably annoying you guys,” he admitted. “You’re probably sitting at your phone thinking, bruv, I don’t want to stand up and dance…”

To be fair to Stormzy, if any set from this rather anodyne line up was likely to raise my pulse, it would have been his. He put his own clear doubts about the validity of the experience to the side and gave it everything, storming around the space, firing off lines with sharp and articulate flow. As a muscular master of rap braggadocio, the 27-year-old Michael Omari Owuo is as good as the Grime genre has ever spawned, and let it rip on hardcore hits Shut Up, Big For Your Boots and Vossi Bop.

But it is the sensitive side of Stormzy that has enabled him to expand his base into mainstream household name territory. A six-piece gospel choir joined on downtempo songs of doubt, insecurity, faith, love and praise for a higher power. It got very churchy at times, with Stormzy exuding the sincerity of a preacher as he insisted that he could feel his invisible audience, wishing us “a little joy in dark times.”

The sentiments were sincere. The delivery was powerful. But as Stormzy’s 50-minute set came to its climax, the deafening silence that followed was yet another reminder that live music needs an audience every bit as much as it needs musicians.