Photos of Ray LaMontagne at the Boston Opera House on October 9th
October 10, 2008 by Sooz
Ray LaMontagne played to a packed Boston Opera House for the first of two nights on Thursday, October 9th. For someone who is apparently shy, he puts on one hell of a show. Instead of standing front and center with the rest of the musicians behind him — they formed a crescent and played as a band. To see this in action, look at the third photo in the slideshow.
Ray sang a bunch of songs from the new album Gossip In The Grain that lands in stores October 14th. He mixed in a few of his older tunes including crowd favorites “Jolene” and “Three More Days.”
You can listen to all the songs from Gossip In The Grain on his MySpace page. “Henry Nearly Killed Me (It’s A Shame)” is great on the CD; but it flies off the awesomeness scale at a live show. The album’s pre-order page at Amazon.com includes the video for “You Are The Best Thing.”
If you’re new to his music, listen to the Ray LaMontagne station on Pandora Radio and you’ll hear similar artists including Amos Lee, KT Tunstsall and Matt Kearney.
The Boston Globe’s Sarah Rodman seemed to enjoy the show, too.
Last night in the first of two shows at the Opera House, LaMontagne maintained that spell, holding a hooting and hollering audience in thrall to his thoughtful ruminations. With a firm grip on sultry southern soul traditions, the loose-limbed grooviness of roots rock, and the poetic possibilities of confessional songwriting, LaMontagne offered a delicately mesmerizing 90 minutes.
Ray LaMontagne Photo Slideshow
UPDATE: It looks like changes were made to Ray LaMontagne’s MySpace page — you can’t listen to all the songs off the new album anymore — but they’ve got a few there to check out.
I am a musician- keyboard/singer and I love the song “Trouble” by Ray Lamontagne. He may not say a whole lot but one can feel it in his voice and in his song. He has a lot of soul in his songs and such depth in his singing.
I can see that he shut everything else out and commune with his spiritual side when he performs- “Outstanding”! He is a “real” artist and I can relate to his performances- “Keep it up Ray” you are the “Real Deal”!