The record captures the second show of a two-night stand in Austin, TX at ACL Live at The Moody Theater on August 5, 2022.
GRAMMY® Award-nominated iconic multiplatinum UK singer, songwriter, and performer David Gray unveils his new live album, White Ladder Live. It bottles the energy, passion, and spirit of 2022’s sold out global White Ladder 20th Anniversary Tour, celebrating two decades of his seminal RIAA platinum-certified breakthrough, White Ladder.
The record captures the second show of a two-night stand in Austin, TX at ACL Live at The Moody Theater on August 5, 2022. For the tour and White Ladder Live, his band notably comprised the original White Ladder studio line-up.
Listen on all DSPs or purchase the limited-edition 2LP vinyl gatefold HERE via Laugh A Minute Records.
Boasting a performance of White Ladder in its entirety, the set consists of instantly recognizable anthems such as the ubiquitous “Babylon,” “This Year’s Love,” “Sail Away,” and “Please Forgive Me.” He capped off a rapturous show in style with heartfelt renditions of David Bowie’s “Life On Mars” and “Oh! You Pretty Things.”
Moreover, he tied this electrifying and inspiring evening together with the story in “Bowie, Babylon, Glastonbury 2000,” recounting his historic surprise second show at Glastonbury, the breakout success of “Babylon,” and a chance encounter with the Thin White Duke himself (witnessed by Gray’s dad who escaped a hospital stay to be there). Check out the full tracklisting below.
In 2022, the White Ladder 20th Anniversary Tour canvased North America, packing venues such as The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, CA, Pier 17 in New York City and the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO, to name a few. The tour also traversed South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in addition to enrapturing 130,000 attendees in arenas across the UK and Ireland.
David Gray commented, “The show we have chosen to focus on for this record is the second night of a two-night run at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas. It’s a great venue where the crowd is really on top of you and there isn’t a bad seat in the house. The first night went well, but the second night just took off from the very first note. We were super relaxed in the way that we played, but also completely on the case - add in a lively Texan crowd and you’ve got a night to remember! It was such an amazing tour, and hopefully these recordings really capture some of that magic.”
Stateside, White Ladder went platinum as he earned a GRAMMY® Award nod in the category of “Best New Artist.” Pitchfork went on to applaud it as “a phenomenon that defies explanation: a modest collection of love songs recorded in his bedroom by an Everyman who was suddenly Everywhere.” It went 10x-platinum in the UK, became Ireland’s biggest-selling album of all time, and earned Gray the first of two Ivor Novellos.
Keeping busy, David Gray will also feature on the upcoming tribute album The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake with his version of “Place To Be.”
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