Review - Fleadh Festival '98
June 06, 1998
David Gray was having himself a good time on the Time Out stage of the Fleadh ‘98 in London’s Finsbury Park on Saturday. That was obvious. Just a couple of "blasts from the past", two new songs and a cover of a Soft Cell song were all the evidence required that the guy has got a real appetite for live performance. He and his apparently ever present percussionist Clune rattled through the numbers with gusto and the rapport between the two was clear to see from the moment they stepped on to the stage to set up their gear unassisted. Only two bands preceded them on the smaller of the Fleadh’s two stages, Equation and Ghostland. The majority of the latter band were to be seen supporting Sinead O’Conor at the end of the night and both of them had larger core followings than DG. However, neither received such heartfelt and rapturous applause at the end of their shows despite having a full complement of instruments with which to entertain compared to DG and Clune’s single acoustic guitar and drum kit.
They opened with "Living Room" from "A Century Ends", a cheery number with a catchy chorus and plenty of references to drinking. This song was likely chosen with the Fleadh crowd in mind being that a good portion of them (myself included), at one o’clock in the afternoon, had already partaken of a few pints of the black stuff. The ploy worked and by the end of the track the small audience was captivated and fully appreciative of the on stage antics e.g. DG climbing on to the drum kit stand to perform a mock stadium rock band false ending. This was followed by "The Light" from "Flesh" which enabled identification of the DG aficionados in the by now swelling audience and next a new song called "Night Blindness", conclusive proof that the man has not lost his talent for writing simple but achingly (ugh) beautiful ballads. As the song ended, gently fading out with the refrain, DG immediately lifted the mood by suggesting that "that was DEFINITELY a moment" as the audience had got caught in that limbo land where they don’t know when the song is over and the applause should begin. A few requests were yelled out at this point (New Horizons for one) to which the retort "forget it" was quickly issued before we got another new number "Sail Away" which is another simple but brilliant tune. And all of a sudden it was nearly over. Just enough time to do the Soft Cell cover, "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" and throw in a verse of Van Morrison’s "Into the Mystic" "especially for the Guinness Fleadh" and that was that.
My first experience of David Gray live confirmed what I already knew, that the guy is an awesome talent who, incredibly, remains relatively unknown. The
Fleadh crowd acknowledged the fact by getting to their feet and giving the pair a rousing send off, a reaction that neither of the two previous acts had
managed to elicit. Hopefully this gig will herald a new recording deal , a new album and an extensive tour to back it up.
Written by Mark Elliott