Edinburgh Playhouse
David Gray’s story is unlike any other. He spent almost a decade striving to make a breakthrough, and when it happened it did so in the biggest way imaginable as White Ladder became one of the best-selling British albums of recent decades and established him as an arena-filling artist.
While the likes of Ed Sheeran, Adele and Hozier have acknowledged his influence, David has continued to follow his own artistic path.
David Gray is back doing what he does better than almost anyone, and fans of complex, serious, lyrical songcraft should rejoice. Dear Life may be the deepest, strangest, loveliest album this pioneering British singer-songwriter has ever delivered. Years in the making, it is an album of emotional crisis and resolution, mortality and faith, reality and illusion, love and heartbreak, magic, science, loss and acceptance.
Gray is a songwriter’s songwriter, one of those rare artists who can express themselves as fully through lyrics as through melody, a richly poetic wordsmith with vast musical flair. Dear Life is a big statement, the work of a driven man obsessively focussed on a personal artistic journey.
Edinburgh Playhouse
Although designed as a variety theatre, the Edinburgh Playhouse opened in 1929 as Scotland’s second largest cinema. It was hugely successful and remained so until the downturn in cinema attendance in the early 70s. When it closed in November 1973, the building was at risk of demolition, but following several years of public ‘save the Playhouse’ campaigns it was eventually saved. It reopened in 1980 as the fully functional theatre it was always intended to be. Since then, it has hosted some of the world's biggest music and stand-up comedy acts including, Elton John, The Who, Nick Cave, Kevin Bridges and Tim Minchin and international hit musicals such as The Phantom of the Opera, We Will Rock You, Wicked, Matilda and Disney’s The Lion King.
Edinburgh Playhouse
