David Gray made a triumphant return, it's a shame one thing nearly ruined it (2025)

A hush descends on the O2 Apollo theatre as David Gray makes his way to centre stage. His vocals are as stirring and powerful as ever as he launches into After the Harvest from his most recent, and perhaps most emotional album, Dear Life.

But fans packing into this sold out Manchester gig don't have long to wait before the familiar territory of My Oh My into White Ladder, the title track from his career-defining, mega best-selling 1998 album classic ringing out across the theatre.

Gray is back in town on his Past and Present Tour, and it's a delightful dip into the back catalogue, as well as choice tracks from the newie.

He treats us to moments of reflection on his more recent songwriting processes post Covid-lockdown, making Leave Taking all the more special in the performance.

It's spine tingling as he takes to the piano, his vocals haunting and heart wrenching as he builds to a crescendo where he leaps to front of the stage with his tambourine to wall out the refrain with the conviction of a preacher.

We are treated to 2002's Dead in the Water and also Freedom, the latter coming with the message: "This one I haven’t played for a while".

There are also covers of Fairport Convention's Who Knows Where The Time Goes, as well as a slightly unexpected boppy dancealong to Depeche Mode's Just Can't Get Enough.

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He talks about the process of writing Dear Life amid the Covid lockdown, like many of us thinking it could be a time for pause and creativity but becoming anything but.

He says: "I didn’t start writing songs properly for a year and a half later. I wrote in a way I’ve never done before and the songs were pouring out."

He performs That Day Must Surely Come in tribute to absent bandmate Neill MacColl and makes what appears to be a plea for a bit of hush from some of the more disruptive audience members that I'm afraid marred this gig for me, and I'm sure did for others in the Apollo.

David Gray made a triumphant return, it's a shame one thing nearly ruined it (1)

"If there’s a time to sit down and listen for four minutes then this is it," he says before bemoaning "those f***ing two pint buckets" that make everyone "run to the toilet".

He's got a good point, because this would have been a 5/5 experience for me, had it not been ruined for at least a fifth of the night by selfish audience members loudly talking, when not swilling from the aforementioned (and surely quite unnecessary) double pint pots and making everyone get up and down for toilet trips.

To me it beggars belief that you'd buy tickets for a sold out gig like this, a gig many fans couldn't get tickets for, and then jibber jabber over the artist in such disgraceful fashion.

Some in front of me even loudly proclaimed "oh the good ones will be at the end" so seemingly thought this was then fine for them to talk over the songs they didn't know for the rest of the show.

But I admit the blood vessels in my eye balls nearly burst when at the finale they continued to talk over the start of Say Hello, Wave Goodbye - giving zero reverence to possibly the best cover version ever recorded.

David Gray made a triumphant return, it's a shame one thing nearly ruined it (2)

For those who found themselves in a seat not surrounded by selfish idiots, they more than got their money’s worth from this show - with over two hours of note perfect songs from Gray.

Memorable moments include Nemesis performed as a fantastical wall of sound with acoustic track overlay, the smoke machine in overdrive making it like a hazy dream. There's also the perfect duet with Talia Rae returning to stage to match vocals note-for-note with Gray on Plus & Minus.

And naturally there's a euphoric finale of This Year's Love straight into Babylon prompting everyone to raise from their seats and sing as one voice.

Returning to stage for the short encore, there's only one way it could end, and that was giving in to the demands for Sail Away.

“We’re off down the Manchester shipping canal” he rasps as he concludes the night with the audience as one, arm in arm, swaying in a lusty mass singalong.

Setlist - 02 Apollo, March 25, 2025

After the Harvest