Randolph Dancing to the beat of his own drum, David Gray performed to what seemed a sold-out crowd at the Coca-Cola(TM) Dome in Johannesburg last night. A radio announcer after the show described Mr Gray as the only man he's ever seen head-bang to a ballad, which was an accurate assessment of his behaviour on stage. He is a little odd, but I put it down to genius :-).
The tickets were worth the price we paid, so I'm happy we went. At almost three hours, we got our money's worth. Watershed was the warmup band for the first 45 minutes, and although they sang my two favourite songs of theirs, I think it could have been a bit longer. They truly are of an international standard.
David Gray is a professional musician, and I respect his talents. He didn't say much, except to introduce some lesser known songs, and he did appear to be head-banging to his ballads, which was odd. I'm trying to remember who else I've seen do that, but the only person whose name came to mind was Joe Cocker, and that seems wrong.
While I enjoyed the show in general, I remember why I dislike concerts in general: asking people to stop smoking in a no-smoking venue; asking people to move out of the way so we can see the screen; asking ushers to fetch a chair because our row's numbering started on 2, and you guessed it, we had tickets for 1 and 2.
David Gray, you can come back anytime!
(See related link for Cape Town show details)