Last night I went to see Ray LaMontagne at the Lyric Opera House. It was an all acoustic night. The opening act was Kacy & Clayton, a band I was previously unfamiliar with. They are cousins from Saskatchewan, Canada. It was just the two of them up there with acoustic guitars. Their music was fine. I’m not sure that I’ll be seeking it out again, but it was a pleasant 45 minutes that sort of flew by. I felt like they had a really short set, but then when I looked at my watch more time had passed than I thought.

Ray LaMontagne was also doing the entirely acoustic thing last night. It was him with Carl Broemel from My Morning Jacket accompanying him on guitar and pedal steel (love me some pedal steel). This was the first time I’ve really seen Ray LaMontagne in concert. He played the Newport Folk Festival a couple of years ago. I don’t remember who he was up against, but obviously someone I wanted to see more since I only saw a small piece of his set there. It was back when he was touring his Supernova album, which I am not a fan of, so that set full of those songs wasn’t doing a whole lot for me. The small section of songs he did from that album last night also reminded me that still don’t care for it.

I do like all his other albums though, and I figured seeing him acoustic would be a nice treat. It’s a good thing that I enjoyed it since I sort of paid double for my ticket. I go to a lot of concerts alone, but sometimes I choose to drag my poor husband. I somehow completely forgot that I bought two tickets for this show way back when they went on sale. I was convinced this was a show I was planning on going to alone right up until I was literally walking out the door and pulled up my ticket in the Ticketmaster app and discovered I had two of them. My husband who is usually pretty game for letting me drag him to concerts he doesn’t care about was understandably not willing to let me drag him out with 2 seconds notice. So I still wound up going alone. I just paid for two seats to do so.

I was having a conversation with someone earlier this week who said that Ray LaMontagne is the second best performer she’s ever seen next to U2. People have different opinions and different things they like in shows, so I’m not here to judge anyone’s preferences, but I can say he for sure is not one of the best performers I’ve ever seen. He wouldn’t even crack the top 25. Probably not even close. I still think his songs are lovely, and it was great to get to hear him play them live. I just didn’t find him super engaging as a performer. Pretty much the only thing he said to the audience all night was to introduce Carl Broemel and say thank you at the end of the night. He just stood up there and played his guitar and sang. I mean ultimately that’s what we’re all there for, but I like a little bit more from my live shows that makes me feel like I’m getting something I wouldn’t get just sitting at home listening to the music.

Even though he has a fairly new album, this set did not feel like he was promoting it. He pretty much concentrated on playing the hits across all of his albums. When someone starts to have an extensive catalog you know you’re never going to hear everything and you just hope that they play the songs you really want to hear. In this case he played every single song I would have wanted to hear save for one, which unfortunately is my favorite song of his. So thumbs down to that. I’m sure I’m not the only one who was disappointed he didn’t play it because it’s the second most listened to song of his on Spotify. I’ll have something more to say about that particular song tomorrow for reasons, so you can wait to find out what it is or use the clues I’ve provided to go look it up now if you can’t stand to wait.

It was an enjoyable evening, though I’m not sure it made me want to see Ray LaMontagne in concert again. Perhaps one day if I’m super excited about an album he’s touring it would be fun to see him play a non-acoustic set as well.