by drumdani, translated by yours truly

Ray Wilson was a solo artist whose records I had never listened to - I knew him from Calling All Stations only. A month ago I had the opportunity, though, to listen to some of his output, namely the She and Live 2005 records. I really enjoyed them and so I decided to attend the Birkenfeld gig which happened to take place at just the right moment. I had re-listened to the songs a couple of days before the show in order not to be completely lost in the music.

The location war a gym-turned-”club”, so there was no rush for the first row, we just stood there. The owner of the place gave a speech about the venue (and nobody cared), and another gentleman who had help organising the Birkenfeld gig wanted to say a couple of words. Then the opener Donovan Aston began to play. Some of you may know him as the keyboarder from cover bands Nursery Cryme and True Collins. Donovans band consisted of a drummer, a bass player and Donovan on keyboards and guitar. They kicked off with Gabriels Red Rain, played a couple of their own songs as well as Many Too Many (in a solo piano version). Solsbury Hill was their last number. Donovan played some 45 minutes (from 8 to 8.45pm). After that one of the promoters went to the mike again while Ray was already tuning his guitar. It was mentioned that it was Ray’s birthday (we could sign on a poster for Ray) and so they wanted to surprise him with sparklers. Ray stood next to him and apparently did not understand ist. At 9pm the show began. The first couple of songs were rock numbers by Stiltskin and Cut_. We lit the sparklers during Lemon Yellow sun (my favourite from SHE) and sang “Happy Birthday” to Ray. The last three songs from the first set were just Ray and his acoustic guitar. The first one was a very good version of In The Air Tonight. Ray told the story of how Phil wanted his job back. A young woman called for Home By The Sea and Ray just said “wrong band”. He then played Shipwrecked and Not About Us.

The second part of the show began with Follow You Follow Me on acoustic instruments (with the full band, though). After that they played songs from Ray’s solo career and The Airport Song that really got everybody going. Towards the end of the main set they played the rock trio of Sunshine And Butterflies, Footsteps and Inside. The call for Home By The Sea was repeated before Sunshine and this time Ray said something like “Beneath the sea? That’s a great idea”. Fly High was the first encore and it really rocked. It was followed by Ghost which became louder and louder - a smashing song towards the end. The finale consisted of two cover songs, Knocking On Heaven’s Door (complete with the additional lyrics of “She wants Home By The Sea”) and No Woman No Cry.
The crowd still wanted more, though. The house lights remained off, the aftershow music began to play, but faded away after a couple of seconds. Ray returned to the stage and played a solo version of No Son Of Mine to much applause. A final call for Home By The Sea changed to I Can’t Dance. Someone also called for Calling All Stations and One Man’s Fool. Ray, however, decided to play The Actor. With this song a super gig ended. Ray played some 140 minutes, excluding the ten minute break. Right now I wonder why I have not listened to Ray’s music before. I shall do so now - and I have realized that this will not be the last gig of his I will attend.

Setlist

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)

No Son Of Mine (Solo Acoustic)
The Actor (Solo Acoustic)

*These songs were played in the second half of the show, but I cannot remember the order in which they were performed.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 9th, 2007 at 6:40 pm 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.