After two suitably folky support acts (Eton Johns and Josh Ritter), Ray LaMontagne and his backing band took to the stage just after nine o’clock and immediately launched into ‘Be Here Now’ taken from his second album Till The Sun Turns Black. LaMontagne’s raspy, breathy voice filled the grand hall beautifully, proving to his eager audience that he was well worth the wait.

LaMontagne chose to let his incredible talent do the talking and was reluctant to enter into any banter with the surprisingly (and annoyingly) rowdy audience. He ended each song with a softly spoken “thank you very much”, and deflected mad cries of “I love you!” from the audience with a polite “that’s sweet”, he also wisely chose to completely ignore a hideously inappropriate “You da MAN!” Interestingly, he decided not to take centre stage, but instead stood in line with his band, creating a more ensemble feel.
  Predictably, one of the true highlights came mid-way through his set with the crowd-pleasing single ‘Trouble’, taken from his first album of the same name. During this song his breathy voice took on a new lease of life as he belted out the chorus with amazing passion.

He continued his set with a mix of tracks from all three of his albums. LaMontagne is blessed to have a very talented backing band, who played different instruments (at one point the keyboard player played both that and a guitar in the same song) and stepped on and off stage depending on the song. LaMontagne played only one song alone, the stunning ‘Winter Birds’ from third album Gossip In The Grain.

Towards the end of his set, LaMontagne invited both his support acts to join him on stage for fun and rousing versions of his songs, ‘Hey Me, Hey Mama’ and ode to White Stripes drummer; ‘Meg White’. He then rounded off his set with a three-song encore, ending with the gentle and understated ‘Jolene’. Ray LaMontagne showed himself to be a class act, modest and quietly charming and his mix of well-chosen and brilliantly performed songs gave enough variety to the set to keep it constantly entertaining.