With one mic, one guitar and their two voices, Rachael & Vilray recreated and reimagined onstage in Cincinnati what they’d previously done with a full jazz band in the studio. 

The duo—Lake Street Dive singer Rachael Price and the mononym composer/vocalist/guitarist—ran through a spellbinding, sold-out show at Memorial Hall OTR, transporting the audience back 80 years and transforming the venue into a USO hall. And when the 75-minute gig ended with the audience shouting the joyful backgrounds to the Andrew Sisters’ “Oh Johnny Oh,” the time- and space-shifting was complete and the second of two standing ovations ensued. 

“Johnny” followed 18 original Vilray compositions from the duo’s three albums – including virtually all of 2025’s West of Broadway and the still-unrecorded “Love Ain’t a Fall.”

Without the benefit of rhythm section, strings and brass, R & V leaned on their copious talents. She, sleeveless in black, scatted; emoted to Vilray’s humorous songs about waking up with a tortoise (“Is it Jim?”) and gossiping with an ex’s mama (“At Your Mother’s House”); and took advantage of the spare aural canvas to bolster her reputation as a generational singer. 

With his Sinatra-smooth voice and whistling (“that’s the sound of a bird shitting on the guy in ‘Gramercy Park,’” he said during the interlude of the titular song) wrapping around Price’s words and scats in the house PA, Vilray’s open chords, bass notes and riffs on his hollow-body electric guitar came through a mic’d Fender amp at center stage. Dressed in a blue work shirt and pink trousers, Vilray was a comedic emcee, telling Price “you deserve” a man-hating song (“Is a Good Man Real?”) and marveling at a fan, inspired by “Let’s Make Love on this Plane,” discussing his sex life with the pair at a merch table. 

As serious as the musicianship was, the presentation was as hilarious, causing the audience to laugh as lustily amid such numbers as “Forever Never Lasts,” inspired about a serially marrying and divorcing couple named Affleck and Lopez, as they applauded solos and held notes. 

“As a songwriter you have very little opportunities for vengeance,” Vilray had said at one point, overlooking that he puts many modern composers to shame with his sheer talent.