David Gray: Live at the Marquee gigs in Cork are special
David Gray plays Live at the Marquee on June 13 and 14.
He revealed that the first of the two shows falls on a particularly important day. “It’s my birthday on the Saturday, so I’ll probably have a few people coming over to celebrate. I normally sort of keep my powder dry when doing shows… but you never know — this being Cork, it could get messy!”
David is particularly buoyant about the musicians he will have with him. “On this tour we are a six-piece, it’s my usual band; which is Clune on drums, Robbie Malone on bass, Tim Bradshaw on keys and guitar, and also Ben de Vries, who’s my producer, playing keyboards, guitar and other bits. Neil MacColl, was supposed to be on the tour last year, but he got very ill and couldn’t come, but thankfully he’s well enough now to participate, so this will be a big deal for him coming back for this.”
Neil is one of David’s longest-standing collaborators, and one he values highly. He continued, “Neil played on my first two albums, ‘A Century Ends’ and ‘Flesh’, and then also on ‘Draw The Line’ and ‘Foundling’. He was on tour with me in 1993, and he would have been at my early shows in Nancy Spains in Cork, and my very first tours of Ireland. Last year, there was no way I could have played ‘What Are You’ from ‘Flesh’, or given ‘A Century Ends’ a real go. Neil is such a big part of the songs from those early albums, they’re very much part of the whole idea of the Past And Present Tour. Neil plays so beautifully and brings that sort of lead guitar aspect which allows other things to happen, and that enables us to play a lot more songs.”
The scope of this tour is for David and his band to play songs from all 14 of his albums, which means it keeps them on their toes, but also means both shows Live At The Marquee will be quite contrasting.
“Each night of the tour is different, significantly different. I can’t say how it will be in Cork, because we’re not there yet! One night, we might focus a lot on ‘Sell, Sell, Sell’, and then the next night it might be ‘Life In Slow Motion’. I’ve got some good little covers that we’re working on that will really energise the room as well.”
While the breadth of David’s song choice options is very large, he assures that the hits will be performed.
“There are certain key songs that have to be in the set when you’re playing really big gigs. So all the big hits, the great, big, whopping songs are going to be there, but how I join the connective tissues between those big moments in the set is a lot of fun for us.
“The way it’s worked so far on the ‘Past And Present’ tour is there are a certain amount of new songs from ‘Dear Life’ (his 2025 album) and then we go deep into all of the other albums.
“I knew that this tour would work in the fashion because those newer songs are strong enough to withstand being put in amongst the other big songs, I feel they’re very melodic and know what they’re doing. They stand on their own two feet. They were born standing up. They were just ready to go. So I feel they have an authority over the audience when I do them, and that’s how it’s been borne out so far.”
David relishes the opportunity to mix around the order of the songs. “Having unexpected covers and album tracks is a great way to keep the energy flowing through the set, you don’t have to drop a big song like ‘The One I Love’ or ‘Sail Away’ to get everybody as one into the gig, you can build into it. I’ve got songs that aren’t the hits, like ‘My Oh My’ or ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ or ‘Nemesis’ that really bring the audience on board, but without hitting the big numbers.
“So that’s how I’ve been engineering the set. I think we did over seventy songs across the tour so far, and even just the last leg, which was ten or so shows in Australia, we played forty-nine songs over those shows.”
Having such a large discography and history has given David and his band a lot to work with.
“The setlist revolves so much, and that’s what keeps it so fresh. The concept behind the ‘Past And Present’ tour is that it’s very much a celebrational thing; the big numbers are there; the energy is there; the whole thing, and it just flows through. I find it enriching, I love the parts where we get the whole audience on board, but they didn’t expect to be there, and then you end up somewhere much more familiar.
“It’s like a sort of a tube map where you’ve added a few more stations. You don’t just end up in Euston Station, you go somewhere on the way.”
One thing David won’t be doing on the days of time in Cork is watching any of the World Cup.
“I’m boycotting the whole thing, I don’t agree with the Infantino and Trump profiteering at a level we’ve never seen from a football tournament in history. You can buy four tickets for Euro 28 for the same price as a parking spot at New York stadium! Fans have been asking fans to play 500, 600 quid. I mean, they can go on a family holiday for the price of a ticket!”
David Gray with special guest The Divine Comedy plays Live At The Marquee on Saturday, June 13, and Sunday, June 14. Tickets available at www.ticketmaster.ie
