A Ray of Sunshine: Concert Review

Thanks to Nancy’s passionate love for Ray LaMontagne, I attended a Ray concert with in Louisville yesterday. It was one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended, made all the better by the beautiful girl by my side (I think her name was Brahbrah. Call me!).

If you haven’t heard of Ray, now you have. His is a prodigious talent. His music is soulful with a tinge of folk to it. Pretty much guy-with-a-guitar music (although he does have a band behind him). Reminds me of Van Morrison.

As I did with the Kings of Leon, here are my three favorite songs of Ray’s for you to download. It was really, really hard to narrow these down. Hopefully Nancy will post her top three in the comments section in case you want to explore his music more in depth.

  1. “Empty”
  2. “Burn”
  3. “Trouble”

The coolest thing about attending a Ray concert, I discovered, is that he doesn’t banter. He plays a song, stops, mumbles something (either the name of the next song or “one two three”), then plays the next song. Rinse and repeat for a total of 16 songs.

That’s in stark contrast to most bands, which try to act all buddy-buddy with the current city. Bands in St. Louis usually namedrop to get the crowd riled up, like, “Heyyyyyy St. Louis! How ’bout that arch?” or “Allllllllbert Pujols!” or “Gotta love the free zoo!” or “Toasted ravioli Ted Drewes gooey butter cake Budweiser Jonathan Franzen!”

Yeah, it’s annoying and disingenuous. But Ray keeps it real. We actually just missed him in St. Louis (yes, remind me that I didn’t see him here, but I drove nine hours round trip to see him in another city with “Louis” in the name), but for our readers in Alabama, he’ll be in Birmingham next.

0 thoughts on “A Ray of Sunshine: Concert Review”

  1. Ok, my top three songs of the evening:

    Hold You in My Arms
    Burn
    Jolene

    I know that Burn is a repeat of Jamey’s top three, but I couldn’t leave it out b/c it’s my absolute favorite song and it’s the best lyrics ever written next to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.”

    Reply
    • You’re right…and I’ll wager that although Franzen was reared in Webster Groves, he’s been left off the concert shout-out list in St. Louis because he was actually born in Chicago.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from jameystegmaier.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue Reading