In England, even the most ardent fan of David Gray would be forced to admit that their idol lacks the cachet of cool. Earlier this year, he was even mocked as unfashionable by Billy Bragg, no cutting-edge avatar of hip himself.
In Ireland, however, Gray's 1999 album White Ladder is the biggest-selling album in history. The audience who fill Dublin's cavernous Point arena offer ample evidence they consider Gray less a sensitive balladeer than a bona-fide pop star. Gangs of men drunkenly chant his name. Girls scream, hold banners proclaiming undying love aloft and - incredibly - throw their underwear. Occasionally, the disparity between the music Gray is playing and the nature of the audience's reaction is bizarre. He launches into Freedom, a troubled song about his father's recent death from cancer. "DAVID! YER GORGEOUS!" comes a delirious squeal from the front row.
It is quickly apparent why Gray inspires such fervour. His music radiates an all-encompassing warmth, largely because Gray sounds as if he means every word. He also has charm by the skipload. His lyrics are scattered with sly colloquialisms: "If you want it, come and get it, for crying out loud," offers the chorus of Babylon. He can create an intimate atmosphere in front of 10,000 people, and carry them for two hours through a set packed with new material of a noticeably darker hue than his breakthrough hits.
But he will never be cool. His habit of wobbling his head from side to side while singing turns out to be one of a series of peculiar physical tics. At moments of great excitement he shakes his legs in a manner that suggests a wedding-reception Elvis impersonator. Drummer Craig McLune, a Timmy Mallet-ish figure in a Hawaiian shirt, given to onstage gurning and elaborate twirling of the drumsticks, hardly helps matters. Yet, as a lovely cover of John Martyn's Go Down Easy slides into a gleefully anthemic Sail Away, such concerns barely seem to matter. Dublin laps it all up regardless.
· At Plymouth Pavilion (01752 229922) on Monday, then tours.
