My first “proper” concert since this one way back when, this evening.
Part of Mrs 6000’s birthday gift this year was a couple of tickets to see David Gray and his delayed (but more on that below) Cape Town concert. Yes, a world tour that’s actually a world tour. (Although Djibouti misses out again.)
This looks good. David presents some of his new and “other” material, then runs through the famous White Ladder album in full, and in order. Rather than just a live set of his songs, this is a piece of work being played as he always intended it to be heard – no shuffle button here – and I love the idea.
There is one issue, namely that White Ladder was actually first released 24 years ago, and so this 20th anniversary is a little delayed. You could blame Covid (after all, why not?), but he still had a good 18 months to get around the globe through 2018 and 2019 before the virus told him he couldn’t.
But maybe that tour took the same route as the original release and… well… flopped.
Yes, because it was actually the re-release of the album on the 1st May 2000 that was his big step along the road to Successville. Since then it has sold over 3,000,000 copies in the UK, and over 7,000,000 copies worldwide. And that tour was delayed by Covid. Quite reasonably.
This won’t be the first time we’ve seen David Gray in concert. Step back to Bellville Velodrome on 9th June 2006, where much younger versions of myself and Mrs 6000 enjoyed his concert from the front row.
We’re a bit further back (and a lot older) this time around, but still looking forward to a great evening.