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Your support makes all the difference.A Ray LaMontagne gig can feel like a strange communion: the bearded, rasping man from Maine at the altar delivering folksy songs of loss and redemption; his contemplative acolytes in the crowd, sporadically breaking out in raptures. So whoever booked the Union Chapel in Islington - with its gothic arches and candles round the pulpit - for LaMontagne's two-night run should receive riches in the hereafter. It is perfect.
The evening is lent a peculiar intimacy, too, by the fact that, for these gigs, LaMontagne has been shorn of support. "It's nice just to play the songs as they were written," he admits. "Just me and the guitar. Without the drums and bass and strings and horns and a 200-strong midget choir playing kazoos."
On his own, LaMontagne is playful. The numbers from his platinum-selling debut album, Trouble, are pulled from pillar to post. "Shelter" is so slow it almost stops. "Hold You in My Arms" is lent an almost entirely different melody for its chorus. It does the material no harm. These are songs LaMontagne has sung hundreds of times, and they are full of warmth and life. During "Hold You In My Arms" there are moments of such vocal power that they cause a physical disturbance in the audience. Heads bend; eyes water. It is astonishing to witness.
Apart from a rich, unexpected cover of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody", though, tonight's show focuses mainly on his new album, Till the Sun Turns Black, yet to be released in the UK. It is a spectral, haunting collection, eclectic in its folk and blues influences, and on many of the tracks his voice has receded to a pumice stone whisper.
Because of the nature of the new material, LaMontagne's gig lacks the emotional directness of early concerts. Now, he appears to be a man without parameters, and what his delivery loses in raw power he makes up for in the sheer musicality of his phrasing.
The packed Union Chapel audience like it - a raucous standing ovation greets both the end of the main set and his two-song encore - and well they might. LaMontagne's best new material is packed towards the end of the show. "Can I Stay", the most perfect love song recorded this year, is listened to with the attention it deserves.
Sometimes, because he seems to be trying things out for the first time, LaMontagne's approach fails. Tricksy guitar parts occasionally defeat him - he starts two songs from scratch after mistakes - and his languid tempo can be self-indulgent. You would sometimes kill to hear him sing a good song straight. Tonight, though, we go all round the houses. There is some beautiful scenery on the way.
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