David Gray - Apollo, Manchester

  by Shirley Procter

published: 17 / 4 / 2025

The stage is awash in purple light, with a QR code hovering at the back, which takes you to www.wwt.org.uk, a charity for wetlands and wildlife, which David Grey supports and is an ambassador for. The page asks you for a donation. The house lights go down and drums and guitars start playing. It is a backing track; there’s no one on the stage yet. The lights come on, and the band arrives, David Gray calls out, “Hello, Manchester”, picks up his guitar and starts to play ‘After the Harvest’. The backdrop has a pattern of green and blue lights playing, with green at the bottom, fading to blue/grey at the top. His voice is lovely. His band features drums, bass, David on acoustic guitar, and two sets of keyboards. This is a slower-paced song, with deep lyrics, and ends to masses of applause, David immediately starts to play, as the crowd sings along, to ‘My Oh My’. The stage is glowing in red light, with yellow spots playing. The bass player is playing an electric double bass, as well as singing backing vocals with the drummer and one keyboard player. The other keyboardist is now playing guitar. “Thank you Manchester!” He changes guitar and launches into ‘The One I Love’. The stage is awash in blue light with white spotlights swinging up and down. He then sits down at a keyboard and tells us the story of the next song: “This next one came about during lockdown, and it was this song that pulled me out of my lack of songwriting. It was based on a poem, and is ‘Leave Taking’. Oh, it’s wonderful - it’s a slower song, about leaving someone. The stage is lit with white spotlights on a purple background. The song finishes, and the crowd roars its approval. He says, “Thank you Manchester” again, and starts to play ‘Be Mine’. Everyone is singing along with it. He has such a distinctive voice, tuneful, powerful, yet scratchy. Next up is ‘Dead in the Water Now’. People are clapping along I’ve not heard this for a while. It’s such a good song. I think I’ll be playing the whole of ‘White Ladder’ when I get home tonight. He tunes his guitar, tells us he’s not played this in a while, it’s a slow song, ‘Freedom’. All the spotlights are on David. You can barely see the rest of the band, but you can hear them playing. The drums are quieter, with a rhythm shaker and single beat, keyboards in the background, with David’s guitar sounding loud and clear. David tells us, “It’s been a while since I played that. I did the BBC piano room a while ago, and they asked me to choose a cover. This is ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes’ by Sandy Denny.” I don’t know this one. It’s such a sad song, but he sings it beautifully. There are no guitars on this song, just keyboards, gentle drums and what sounds like strings playing in the background. “Thank you so much,” David says. We’re going to lower the age of the band right now, by introducing the wonderful, talented Talia Rae. This song is called ‘Plus and Minus’. The band is joined on stage by Talia, who was also tonight’s support act. She harmonises so well with David, and their voices complement perfectly. The stage is lit with orange lights, switching quickly to blue spotlights, then back to orange. The song finishes and Talia leaves the stage. ‘Singing for the Pharaoh’ is a a much faster-paced song, with a strong rhythm. The stage is lit with white spots again. The song ends abruptly, and David immediately starts to play a cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’, with everyone joining in. The bass player is on maracas, and David is dad dancing as he sings. The song ends, the stage goes dark, then they start ‘Please Forgive Me’, with the crowd all singing along, David is back on keyboards. At the line “I’ve half a mind to scream out loud,” he says, “Come on, Manchester!”, so we all do! We all join in with the “whoa ah,” and carry on with “Every time I look at you,” clapping along. People are up dancing all around the venue, loving the song. He’s clearly enjoying the crowd’s reaction. The song finishes to rapturous applause, shouts and whistles. ‘Silver Lining’ is a much slower song, and has really powerful lyrics. He writes such incredible songs. He tells us: “Writing songs for my new record was a challenge when Covid happened, I downed tools and joined in with the Covid nonsense with my family. We were trying to start the ‘White Ladder’ tour; I set to work and began to write like I’d never before. This particular song fell out of the sky fully formed, it was already there, I just uncovered it. I was noodling around. This song feels like it’s been waiting to be written for a long time. This goes out to Neil McCauley; he’s been ill for a while.” This is ‘That Day Wiil Surely Come’. It’s a slow song, with just David on guitar, under a red spotlight. The rest of the band join in slowly, one instrument at a time. It’s an amazing song which the crowd instantly love. The band has left the stage as David sings. It’s just him playing his guitar and singing. He’s playing into a loop recorder, and the guitar sounds are echoing round and round. It’s utterly gorgeous. I love these. They’re so clever and the people who use them are so talented! This song is ‘Dotted Line’. The house lights come on - people are standing, clapping. David says: “Every time I come to this venue, it reminds me of home, I’m going to take us right back to the beginning now. This is ‘A Century Ends’ from his first album, also known as ‘ACE’. The song finishes, and a couple of people shout, “Go on, David!” Next up is ‘The One I Love’. The crowd sing along. The stage is lit with light blue vertical lights shining down and shining out into the crowd. Back on keyboards, David starts to play ‘Slow Motion’, with the bass player now on electric guitar. It sounds so good. ‘Alib’” is next; it starts off incredibly slowly. The stage is purple with yellow lights. The crowd love this, cheer and clap as it comes to an end. David starts the next song on keyboards. The audience recognises the song, claps and joins in singing with him word for word, line by line as he sings ‘This Year’s Love’, which is such a beautiful song. Again, as the next song ‘Babylon’ starts, the crowd roars. He tells us, “Sing along with me Manchester,” as he starts the chorus again. We all sing along, standing and clapping along. Almost everyone is up, dancing and singing along. Everyone sits down and joins in singing ‘Say Hello and Wave Goodbye’. As the song ends, David conducts us into singing the chorus a capella. This was superb! He calls out,“Thank you Manchester”, as the band walk off the stage. Strangely, some people are leaving! I know there’s two more songs for the encore. There’s always an encore, except at Glastonbury, so I don’t know why anyone is leaving! The band return to the stage, David sits at the keyboards and starts to play ‘The Other Side’, a song he wrote when his dad died. This is an incredibly powerful song about love and loss; he writes so well. He follows this with ‘Sail Away’, with the crowd singing along to both songs. Everyone is standing now, singing loudly. The song ends and the crowd roars, cheers, claps and is so loud! David thanks us and leaves the stage for good. The house lights come up as people leave. Photos by Trust Fox

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