Kung Fu Kitten

Sooooo, went to see Ray LaMontagne at the Armadillo (or the Clyde Auditorium) on monday night.  I have been looking forward to this gig for a very long time as I feel Ray’s voice is the most beautiful voice I have ever heard.  I  saw him on tv (Jules Holland’s Hootenany) recently and had no clue that he was so young!  He has a very old, ‘I’ve been through a hell of a lot in such a short space of time’ voice and it just washes over you like chocolatey velvet.  My mate and I were 6 rows from the front, which was very cool as it was gonna be a chilled, kind of kicking back gig and it was!!

Ray is known for not communicating with his audience and as usual, he had no intention of even giving a Glasgow audience any eye contact despite racious rounds of applause and whilstles from the packed venue.  By the third or fourth song the Glaswegians began heckling the poor guy shouting, “Speak!!!  SPPEAAAAKKK!!!!!” and other such remarks.  I was quite appauled by the behaviour and said to my mate, “If they keep this up he’ll never come back to Glasgow.” and my mate totally agreed (of course! ) 

However, to my utter surprise after someone shouted, “I LOVE YOU!!!!!” and the whole place bursting out with laughter, Ray actually said, ” Oh…….I love you too!” and that was it.  You could not get him to stop talking and communicating with the audience and it was just wonderful. 

When he eventually came for an encore, he told us how he had stopped playing the harmonica as he felt that everybody was sick of seeing a guy with a guitar and harmonica, but he asked his roadie to get them after the audience persuaded him with yet more heckling.  He also played us some new stuff, un named, that he felt was, “rough around the edges” but it was just amazing!!!

So bar playing a lot from his new album, which I don’t yet have (and it was fabulous) he played a fair amount from his debut including Trouble, How Come? and ended with ‘O Mama’ which caused me to cry my eyes out as it touched my spirit so very deeply.  I give him 5 outta 5 and if you wish a beautiful chilled out (but not depressing) artist, I highly recommend him.