David Gray played with barely a pause over two hours Sunday night, racing from piano to acoustic guitar between songs at the Apollo Theater in New York, as he cycled through “a comprehensive retrospective” of his 25-year catalog.
Big voices are best suited for small spaces, and the Apollo’s 1,500-seat venue afforded a warm, absorbing expanse for Gray’s loose, self-deprecating one-man show. With no band supporting him, he built layers upon his own vocal and instruments in real-time, creating an illusion of reinforced presence.
Gray’s superb ability to replicate himself using a looper pedal made the night’s few imperfections all the more endearing. An abrupt silence disrupted “Mystery of Love” when Gray’s foot missed the pedal; the momentary stumble inspired cheers, to which Gray smiled and resumed the song on piano without missing a beat. Later, when he forgot the words to “Back in the World,” Gray demanded, “Oh bollocks, someone Google it!” Smartphone screens immediately lit up.
What does touring behind a greatest hits album signal? A departure? A reset? Curiously, The Best of David Gray, Gray’s latest hits package from iht Records—the second in less than a decade—adds only a handful of songs not offered on the 2007 collection. Gray performed a few from his post-2009 recordings, plus two new ones, “Smoke Without Fire” and “Enter Lightly.” Perhaps one of the night’s most memorable songs remains unreleased; Gray wrote the lyrically clever “Dunleary” following the stock market crash.
Among Gray’s peers, whose heart-stopping voices underscore themes of lost love and frank politics, are Ben Harper, Glen Hansard, Marc Cohn—those whose astonishing, melodic wails sting most in their pained, hopeful refrains. In this spirit on Sunday, Gray brought fresh, stripped interpretations of the singles that have kicked around on U.S. and U.K. radio for years, including “The One I Love,” “Be Mine,” and “Babylon.”
“I’ve got a vague plan on songs, but I don’t really know what I’m going to do,” Gray told Glide in the green room after the show. “I just try and work really spontaneously, writing really, really fast, and then worry about it later, tidy it up. That’s my technique.”
