It was the third time Ray played at the Klosterkirche in Remscheid yesterday.
Klosterkirche ist a centre for cultural events in the historic part of the quarter of Lennep. Ray had performed there twice before, once with an Acoustic Trio show, the other time with a semi-acoustic 4-piece show.
This time there were no seats in the venue (except for a couple of rows on the balcony) which has room for 300 people seated. With no seats that night there was an audience of around 400 people who enjoyed a longer show. But who was on the bill? Sometimes it says “Ray Wilson and band”, then again it’s Ray Wilson & Stiltskin - actually the posters said “Ray Wilson + Stiltskin”, but Ray offered a mix of many things with a focus on material from the SHE and Millionairhead albums. The Cut_ CD is now available from the merchandise stand. It has been remastered and now includes three bonus tracks (Dark, Reason for running, Adolescent breakdown).
The show was one of Ray’s better performances. There was just one story, but it had its charme. While Ray was recording Calling All Stations with Genesis in 1996, his mother called and told him “Phil wants his job back, I saw a news on VH-1 - maybe he is short of money.” Eleven years later Ray met Phil backstage at the Hannover Genesis show, and Phil asked him to “tell your mom I got my job back”.
During the show it was also mentioned that the live 2DVD set may become available only late in 2008 because Ray wants to record further shows in autumn 2007 and spring 2008. He has begun to write new songs in the meantime and it looks like an album which “moves between Change and SHE”.
The music: Starting with SHE is a good choice; the rockier numbers went down very well, particularly Fly High, Footsteps, and Hey Hey. Space Oddity sounds really fresh, and its intro sound almost like Pink Floyd. The end of the show was a bit peculiar. Ray announced the last song, Ghost, reaching for his harmonica and spontaneously played Knocking On Heaven’s Door. The audience sang along to this song as well as the ensuing No Woman No Cry.
The unavoidable Goodbye Baby Blue is approaching the same status in Ray’s setlist as Hold On My Heart in a Genesis set: It may have been played a bit too often…

These songs were played:

SHE
Space Oddity
Another Day
Lemon Yellow Sun
Hey Hey
Sarah
Constantly Reminded
In The Air Tonight (solo acoustic)
Shipwrecked (solo acoustic)
Not About Us (solo acoustic)

Follow You Follow Me
Change
The Carpet Crawlers
Alone
The Airport Song
Rest In Peace
Goodbye Baby Blue
Taking Time
Footsteps
Sunshine And Butterflies
Inside

Fly High
Ghost
Knocking On Heaven’s Door
No Woman No Cry

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 8th, 2007 at 10:16 am and is filed under Ray Wilson: Concert reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.