David Gray: We've got some surprises in store for anniversary show in Musgrave Park
David gray
David Gray wasn’t sure he wanted to mark the anniversary of his breakthrough album, White Ladder. The chart-topping singer-songwriter has always looked to the future and is more interested in challenging his fanbase with new music than pushing their nostalgia buttons. And yet, coming out of the pandemic, he has delighted to honour the landmark 1998 LP with a series of celebratory concerts that will include a big outdoor show at Cork’s Musgrave Park on June 18.
“As an artist, you have to be slightly wary of giving the audience what it wants,” he says. “The only way that it made sense to me is that it was personal. That it was a genuine celebration of something that happened with the people that did it [such as his early drummer Craig McClune, with whom he reunites] and with the audience. And as it’s turned out it’s become a celebration of music itself. A celebration of the opportunity to even play to a crowd. In a way, that makes the performing of it a little simpler. There’s only one target: connection and uplift. That’s what we’ve achieved at every gig.” White Ladder was the miracle that kept on giving. Gray (53) had built a cult following in Ireland from 1993 on but struggled to break out in his native UK. And so the future was by no means rosy as he started recording the album in his London flat in the spring of 1998.
