November 27, 2022

David Gray – Spark Arena: November 26, 2022

David Gray, his ground breaking album, White Ladder, of 2000 is still adored, still provides relaxed listening and last night still attracted an audience of appreciative concertgoers.

How can it be 20 years (actually, 22 years – delay due to Covid!) since White Ladder was released?

On a night when there were many other musical offerings available in Auckland, the half-format, reduced tier seating in the Spark Arena was pretty much filled and felt intimate. In. lieu of a support act, the night started with a video of David Gray telling of his love for the endangered British bird the curlew, with a request for donations to support them – possibly somewhat bewildering for our kiwi audience, but a nice introduction to the character of a caring singer with a personal (and somewhat unique) cause.

Gray came to the stage in a dark suit, starting Shine as a solo acoustic performance before being joined by his 4 piece band. As the first song from his first album, Shine kicked off a retrospective journey through other hits and tracks from albums other than White Ladder, which was to be covered in its entirety in the second half. As an introduction, “Shine” showcased the folksey vibe of much of Gray’s work, with the thoughtful, loving and positive lyrics so appreciated by his fan base.

The tempo changed with “You’re the World to Me”, which was far more upbeat with jangly guitar accompaniment. Whilst Gray and his band were wearing sombre dark suits, the atmosphere and performance was anything but sombre, with huge energy shown in crowd favourite “The One I Love”, kicking in the singalongs which would continue throughout much of the evening.

Gray engaged the audience with easy anecdotes between songs, including stories about touring – explaining the background to “Flame Turns Blue”, which was performed with the accompaniment of a melodic electric double bass. “Hospital Food” from “Life in Slow Motion” was followed by the title track of that album, with Gray swapping his guitar for keyboards for a change of pace. The excellent “Freedom” preceded crowd favourite “Be Mine”, which unsurprisingly and deservedly received an enthusiastic reception and loud accompaniment from the audience. I’m sure many of those attending consider it “their song” – unless that accolade is held by one of Gray’s other offerings, such as “Sail Away” or “Please Forgive Me”… hopefully not “We’re Not Right”!

After closing the first set with the excellent “Nemesis”, the audience broke for an interval before returning to enjoy “White Ladder”. Excitement ramped up as Gray came onto the stage (now wearing a white suit), with immediate engagement from the distinctive start to “Please Forgive Me”, featuring an outstanding drum solo. The whole arena were singing and continued to do so for the remainder of the night! To be fair, they’d had 22 years of listening to the album to familiarise themselves with the set list and lyrics, but it still proved testament to how well listened-to and loved “White Ladder” has been. Gray’s breakthrough and best-known hit “Babylon” concluded with just the audience singing an impassioned acapella reprise.

The tight-knit, accomplished and flawless band had plenty of opportunity to showcase their prowess though, continuing through the album in a set with very little deviation from the way the original tracks sound. Gray broke before “Nightblindness” to remind the audience that (famously) “White Ladder” was put together in the spare bedroom of his house in Stoke Newington; whilst self-recording is now commonplace, back at the turn of the century (!) it was far more unusual. The melancholic tone was countered by the positive refrain of “a brighter day” – a recurring motif in Gray’s songs, with the interesting emotional juxtapositions of romance with realism and resigned acceptance with uplifting optimism.

Introduced by Gray as “one of his favourites”, “Silver Lining” continued the singalong, followed by clapping to the title track of the album, “White Ladder”. Back on the piano for “This Year’s Love”, Gray requested that the arena be lit by mobile phones, creating a beautiful backdrop for a beautiful song, the intimate romance only slightly marred by thousands of people singing along! The audience’s enthusiastic accompaniment became almost deafening when Gray dedicated “Sail Away” to the “City of Sails”, with all arms waved in the air to another obvious crowd favourite. It would have been perfect had it not been for Gray’s conclusion of a whistled chorus (in my opinion, inexcusable – are there any songs which are improved by whistling?). The climb up “White Ladder” reached its pinnacle with the final track, a cover of Soft Cell’s “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” – prefaced by Gray as “such a beautiful song, which has given me a lot of pleasure over the years”. It was melodic, heartfelt and poignant, a reflective end to the album, but not the way to end the gig – so it was never going to be “Goodbye” at this point.

While the audience were there for “White Ladder”, the unexpected stand-out of the night was the encore. The band came back to “Say Hello” again with another cover (actually, a cover of a cover!), continuing the Soft Cell tribute with a high-energy version of “Tainted Love”, with a slight jazz vibe.

Gray told the story of how “White Ladder” – which has sold over seven million copies worldwide – came to be released in 2000, and how “Babylon” was re-released as a single to coincide with his performance at Glastonbury. Gray’s father, having chemotherapy at the time, interrupted his treatment to attend his son’s biggest gig and met headliner David Bowie backstage. In honour of both his Dad and Bowie, Gray went on to deliver amazing covers of “Life on Mars” and “Oh! You Pretty Things”, showing the full range of his voice and his prowess on piano.

It wasn’t Glastonbury and the audience was older and far smaller than 75,000, but the enthusiastic dancing, singing and feelgood festival vibes were definitely evident as the band segued into a reprise of “Please Forgive Me”, rounding off a flawless evening of 3 hours’ entertainment. Thoughtful and accomplished – yes, maudlin and sedate – definitely not. This was a joyful, diverse, well-structured retrospective performance which has to be a contender for gig of the year.

Will David Gray will be back for another “White Ladder” anniversary performance in the City of Sails? Let’s just hope it’s not another 20 (22!) years away!

Carin Newbould

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Chris Zwaagdyk:

David Gray Setlist:

Set 1 – Retrospective