A belated review to follow up the one from earlier in the tour:
Well, I just got back to South Wales from the metropolis that is Wolverhampton after a nightmarish car ride there and back through the thickest fog in Christendom.
Upon arriving at the venue (handy car park for only 2 quid right next door) we got a beer from one bar and a pizza from the one on the other side of the auditorium and checked out our view. Pretty good from halfway back on the left side of the front stalls.
The Wolverhampton Civic Hall is quite a small venue in comparison to St David's Hall, Cardiff where Mrs Jaime & I saw Ray on the opening night of the tour. For those with an architectural bent, the hall is quite a decent example of 1930's British modernism with some art deco features in the auditorium itself. A balcony runs in a U-shape all the way around the three sides facing the stage, below which wooden panelling around the stalls helps to further introduce a human scale to the venue.
To those not of an architectural bent, the hall looks like Your Comprehensive School Dinner Hall and is about the same size. Hopefully you get the picture.
Anyway, support act Sarabeth did her thing again. I'm now thinking she is definitely one from the Miserable-ist genre. Not really one to book for the office Christmas party, although it looks as though she hired her outfit from a fancy dress place. I think it was one of the characters from Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century but I forget the name.
Ray and the band came on at 9pm and I've got to say that they seemed much, much tighter than they were in Cardiff. Ray's voice was really on top form and they all seemed so relaxed and so polished. I don't know whether this is because the Civic Hall is much less formal than St David's Hall but Ray and the band definitely seemed more comfortable. The downside to this though, I think, was the pissheads bobbing back and forth to the bars on the sides and jabbering away in the middle of songs. A couple near me were threatened with extreme physical violence by a very large man whose evening they were spoiling. I found it quite entertaining but made sure I was especially quiet after that. Eventually the annoying couple were removed. Again, maybe the reason this back and forth to the bar thing didn't happen in Cardiff, as it seems to have at so many of the other gigs, is because it is a bit more formal and you can't take your drinks into the auditorium there? I don't know but having the bars so close seems to cause a bit of a problem for me and others.
Although Ray and the band were on top form, I didn't think the interaction between Ray and the audience was as good as at the start of the tour and I think this was because the audience seemed very subdued. It was certainly alot younger and seemed less 'into it.'
It didn't feel like there was as much Ray love in the room and there were none of the delightful hippie-chicks and very few beards about. There were, however, a lot of corduroy jackets. This seemed to strangely fit with the school dinner hall concept and I was even thinking that Ray and the band looked like the cool teachers at your late 70's/early 80's school had got together to do a concert at assembly. I was thinking that Ray would be the quietly spoken English teacher, Ethan would be the unpredictable head of art and Jen the new and strangely attractive lower school art mistress. Eric would be the geography teacher who shouts a lot. He reminds me of Mr Bisi, who was a git. One thing that Ray very kindly suggested to the audience was that we should buy one of Sarabeth's CD's instead of one of his t-shirts. A nice gesture,
There were so many highlights but again the first three numbers were humdingers as were Trouble, Burn, Shelter, I won't be around and Bessie Smith, which I hadn't heard the Band's original version of.
The set list was (I'm almost certain) as follows:
1- How Come
2- You Should Belong To Me
3- Three More Days
4- Forever My Friend
5- Hold You In My Arms
(band introductions)
6- I Won't Be Around
7- You Can Bring Me Flowers (What made milwaukee famous version!)
8- Burn
9- Gone Away From Me
10- Empty
11- Shelter
12- Barfly
13- Trouble
(encore break)
14- Bessie Smith
15- Jolene
Was hoping for something different as maybe a dry run for anything new at the Royal Albert Hall and I suppose I was a bit disappointed that Ray only came back for one encore, whereas he had done two at Cardiff. He also didn't do Till The Sun Turns Black or Within You, which had been special on the opening night. Never mind - I'm being very picky - it was still great. Sang my lungs out all the way home. Closing my eyes to reach the high notes probably not a good idea with all that fog around but somehow I got Mrs Jaime & I safely home.
Ray Lamontagne - Wolverhampton Civic - 4th Nov 07
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Its funny, isn't it? I'd never heard of the guy and I'm not sure the original review from Jaime did him many favours? But there was I earlier, keeping a watching brief on Englands U21's duly beating the Welsh whilst reading the London Standard, when you know who's review in that very rag grabbed my attention and why? Because of Jaime's post. Otherwise, I would have passed it by. Good review from the Standard, seems like it could interest me as well!
Looking forward to Jaimes repost
!
Looking forward to Jaimes repost
!Talk is cheap
Yeah the under 21 soccer match was about the ninth item on our local sports news. I think it was mentioned after the badger baiting. I didn't take much notice as I've never really been into minority sports. Enjoyed some real sport today though - Cardiff getting a bonus point win against Gloucester in the Heineken Cup.caller wrote:Its funny, isn't it? I'd never heard of the guy and I'm not sure the original review from Jaime did him many favours? But there was I earlier, keeping a watching brief on Englands U21's duly beating the Welsh whilst reading the London Standard, when you know who's review in that very rag grabbed my attention and why? Because of Jaime's post. Otherwise, I would have passed it by. Good review from the Standard, seems like it could interest me as well!
Looking forward to Jaimes repost
Anyway back to Ray!
I'm VERY excited as (at the risk of entering stalker territory) I have front row tix for the first, last and middle gigs of his UK tour next February, in York, London & Bristol respectively.
I haven't got the new album yet but I've heard most of the tracks and I think it sounds like I'm going to LOVE it when it finally arrives! There's a couple of re-worked old unreleased tracks on there, the best of which IMO is Sarah, one of Ray's most beautiful songs and Henry Nearly Killed Me is a proper rolling blues foot stomper.
