David Gray

Tonight' setlist for curious persons.

Sail Away

Fugitive

Late Night Radio

Faster, Sooner, Now

Silver Lining

Lately

First Chance

You're The World To Me

Nemesis

This Years Love

Kathleen

My Oh My

Money / Pressure Drop

Draw The Line

The One I Love

Please Forgive Me

Encore:

Babylon

Say Hello Wave Goodbye (Into The Mystic)

For a Summerfest crowd, I thought the crowd was good.  I would have liked a few more different songs than Chicago's set but all in all a good concert.  

Wow, this one was a surprise to me - I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I am just not a Summerfest fan but the venue being new and having assigned seats in the lower bowl made it pretty painless experience. It was weird to sometimes hear other bands playing during a quiet moment of our show but it wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. I stood from the moment DG and the guys came out and that is always a plus for me. There were some near me who clearly were just there to check things out (some left after only a few songs) but there were also some, like me, who were pretty into it. DG was in good spirits and joked around a lot - he launched into some star trek story and made the Spock (vulcan) fingers, joked about it sounding like playing in a giant rehearsal hall, did the moon walk, etc.. He just seemed happy to me and that came through with the energy and music. There was a good dynamic between him and the crowd. We did get Radio/Faster tonight and while it came early, as in Chicago, it didn't seem as forced to me. There was a good vibe from the beginning. I kind of came to a realization tonight that he's probably sticking with a safe setlist because it's working. Something about the tempo and energy of most of the songs all work together. Generally the same songs but a little shuffling of the deck each night. Biggest surprise of the night for me was getting Hello Goodbye. Was a little giddy about that one and I couldn't stop smiling so have to say a big thank you for that. I have to say that as much as I liked the Lost and Found tour I am really loving these rocking shows - they have been a blast. I will have to save any further thoughts for another time ... like after I've gotten some sleep.

Thanks Bersey for the setlist and to Wolfie for the great review.

I have learned not to expect a festival gig to be as good as an indoor theatre type. but this sounds liked a great gig.

Pleased you got Late Night Radio and Faster Sooner now tonight.

Was just checking through the past set lists, was this the first time you got Say Hello Wave Goodbye on this tour?

Enjoy your sleep Wolfie

Yes, first time for Say Hello Wave Goodbye this tour. Looks like it was going to either be that or Nightblindness to close the show. Love both but Hello Goodbye was perfection last night. Such a treat.

Dragged my dad (bless his heart!) to his second David Gray show last night and he enjoyed the show, too. I was so into the concert that I didn't notice but he said that security was really on everyone last night so that probably helped to keep things orderly. I am appreciative that security didn't make those who wanted to stand sit down. There weren't a lot of standers near me but no one asked me to sit down. Now that I've experienced Summerfest both ways I am really thankful that DG was on the new stage with the reserved blue passes down in front because it made it a much more civilized festival experience. I would say it was the biggest crowd of the tour so far because of the size of the venue. Not an intimate feeling but as more of the crowd stood and more people started singing and dancing toward the end of the show it started to feel more intimate. Not sure what made the energy feel so good but it was good. Part of it was DG's humorous little moments and his brief intereactions with the crowd. So relieved it all worked last night.

There is a nice little article about the show, including a few photos here: http://onmilwaukee.com/myOMC/authors/mollysnyder/summerfestbiggig.html and it looks ike someone posted a video of Babylon from last night here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0soOZzZd1o .

Edited to add another video link (Sail Away): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSzFhywoXiY - and sounds like that same person might be adding more videos. Okay, coming back for another edit... looks like this one was taken down. Maybe it will reappear.

Thank you bersey for the setlist and thanks to Wolfie for a great review, and the links !

Although not so expected this looks like a night not to miss.... very nice...

I see what you are saying Wolfie about the civilized experience, good that it worked out so well this time round.

The video shows people were really into everything, and response elsewhere on the web has been really good too. 

Good work by DG and the boys !

Marcel.

Wolfie you took your dad, thats so cool. Glad he got the chance to see them again. And really glad the show was amazing, even with all the other action going on around.. Great set list and agree on the closing song. Say hello, wave goodbye always get's to me. Such a beautiful song.

Hope your all staying as cool as possible with all the heat everyone has been getting. Thanks for all the reviews and videos.Has made my day.

Nemesis from this show and right at the beginning is the Star Trek story - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XdKJyMB1u0&list=UUWDgeHAJUjcsVqJxkLlSAqw&index=5&feature=plcp  - good stuff. Valerie has some other videos from this show on her channel, too, including Money (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlvKLIMtGsU&feature=relmfu ).

Some great photos here: http://www.concertcapture.com/galleries/concerts/david-gray/ .

It's weird that they (DG and the band) could hear so much of the action on the other stages (esp. Iron Maiden) because from where I was sitting I could hear very little. Kudos to them because it was still an amazing show despite the distractions.

Hey all-

I just wanted to quickly agree with everyone that I did enjoy David Gray's performance (as usual).  He always puts on a good show and is in good spirits. I do have to disagree about the venue being a good place for David to play, though, for a couple of reasons:

- The way that they did the reserved seating for this pavilion was an absolutely terrible idea. They did not market it well at all and most people that I talked to (including people coming up from Chicago) that were going to David Gray and other concerts on that stage had no idea that you had to "buy" the tickets on line to get in the first 26 rows. Furthermore, at least the first 9-10 rows were filled with people who got tickets early either from friends of BMO bank or as a client of BMO.  This meant that, aside from the occassional David Gray fan speckled here and there and the few fans that were allowed up on the fence, the first dozen rows were filled with people who either didn't know David Gray or were just there to sit and enjoy a concert.  This really brought the energy level down for me (even though I still had a great time).

- The other large issue was that rather than having fans pay for seats, they made the tickets free on Ticketmaster, you just had to "purchase" them the same as you would normal tickets (just for $0).  They did not put any limit on the number of tickets that you could purchase, so scalpers and resellers purchased way more tickets than they needed and then attempted to sell them on stubhub, at the show, or on other ticket sale sites.  People weren't going to pay some of the ridiculous prices that people had online (I saw a lot between 100-300$ so this meant that there were a lot of open seats at the pavilion that would normally not be there for a David Gray concert in Milwaukee.  No artist likes to see so many open seats at one of their concerts.  Also, because they had already given out the first dozen or so rows as I mentioned above, people that got on immediately when the tickets went on sale (like myself) found that you couldn't get any tickets that were close to the stage.  The tickets that we got were close enough to enjoy the concert but it would have been nice for David Gray to have the first dozen rows filled with hardcore David Gray fans and then have that energy feed back to the crowd behind.

I'm sorry that I sound a little perturbed about the experience.  Like I said, I still had a great time at the concert and it is always amazing to see David play live; I just don't want people to think that Summerfest is the best venue for David to play at when he comes to Milwaukee when he absolutely blew the lid off the Riverside two years ago. 

Couple things... first, I agree that the Riverside in Milwaukee is a great venue. I have seen two DG shows there and they were both fantastic. I would happily see another show there. I definitely agree that Summerfest is not the best venue for DG to play when he goes to Milwaukee... in fact, I personally wouldn't mind if last Wednesday was the last time he plays there.

Regarding the Blue Circle Passes - I do think that maybe that whole deal should have been spelled out a little more clearly here (not this thread, but this website) but in the end it is up to each of us, individually, to do our homework if something is of importance to us. I have been disappointed in the past and learned this the hard way! It was all pretty clearly explained on the Summerfest website. Btw, there was a limit on the number of passes you could get - it was 4. Now, of course, people probably found a way around this, but that is always the case with rules and those who wish to challenge them for profit. And it was not just BMO people in the first 9-10 rows - they did give some of those rows away on the intitial giveaway (at least at the box office). Yes, there were more bank/corporate/not really interested in DG people down in front than I would have liked, but that kind of comes with the territory, unfortunately, of a sponsored pavilion, especially year one.  I do agree about the number of empty seats down front. I had thought security might let people come down to take those once the concert started, but they were pretty strict the whole show. I think they just didn't want things to get out of hand, which I have to respect. At first I was disappointed about there being passes because I wanted to be in the front row (who doesn't?!?!) and I thought I'd have a shot at that by camping out all day for GA, the way it is at most S'fest stages. However, in the end, I was satisfied with being a few rows back and being able to enjoy the show in a civilized and pleasant manner. I thought the pavillion itself was beautiful and comfortable. The sound bleed was bad (esp for the performers) and soo unfortunate for DG to have had to go head to head with Iron Maiden but I think that's the nature of the beast there. Overall, I think it went about as well as I could have expected for Summerfest as far as being a good show with a respectful crowd. I was expecting a lot worse. I totally understand your complaints, though, and hope for better for you next time!