Ray LaMontagne/ Siobhan Parr @ The Water Rats 09/09/04

Right. Grab yourself a pint of the black stuff, light up a fag and sit yourself down on the floor. Seemingly, this is the proper way to listen to the first performer of the night, Siobhan Parr, who immediately comes onstage and takes command of the room. Apparently handpicked as Ray’s support, she immediately justifies herself through her touching and consuming melt of folk, blues and soul. By second song in, Woman I Am, her bluesy ode to female sexuality is completely overpowering before moving into, as she delicately puts it, ‘a bit of a ballad I’m afraid’, pleading ‘hold me, love me, take me for a ride’. Another Love brings the mood to a more upbeat level, before performing a beautiful cover of Tim Buckley’s The Joker, with its simple symbolism touching us all. The most impressive aspect of Siobhan’s performance is how she sustains her notes - powerful mid range turns into half whispering before moving effortlessly up the scale - absolutely incredible and puts her in a different league of current female performers.

The hotly anticipated Ray LaMontagne follows, heading straight into stirring melody with his uniquely gruff yet chocolatey smooth vocals, before next song adding a paradoxical tinge of sad hopefulness, ‘I could hold you in my arms, I could hold you forever’, echoing the similar sentiments as his heroes in the folk and blues history books (Crosby, Stills & Nash, Otis Redding). The trusty harmonica makes it first appearance by the fourth song in, wending and waning its night-time notes over the crowd (which has by this time been forced to stand due to more people trying to get in the doors). Ray’s quiet humour expresses itself once he has seemingly gained confidence in the crowd, being self-deprecating about his work ‘here’s another one like that song…I just changed a couple of words’. Visibly enjoying his time on stage, Ray delivers a well received version of Jolene after being requested by the adoring crowd; the words containing both strength and the powerful lift of his voice conveying his own type of ‘fuck you’ despair. Last official song of the set reduces the audience to silence, the clinking of glasses and the slight burr of the fan humming away, with soft guitar strumming with an immensely personal dedication, finally ending with a one-song encore, bringing the mood back up with a touch of country blues.

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