CultureMap QA

David Gray on U.S. tour: 'I see it as a precious thing that I'm allowed to do'

David Gray plays at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie on July 3, along with Amos Lee.

David Gray/Facebook

David Gray hit it big back in 2000 with the re-release of his album White Ladder and the hit “Babylon.” Since then, the indie British rocker has had a steady if unflashy career, one whose sales have always proven better in the United Kingdom than in the United States.

But he’s unfazed by it. “I’ve got a very strong fan base, which I’m thankful for; I’ve got a lot of passionate fans,” he says. “I’ve spent a huge portion of my time coming over here to play music for them.”

In advance of his latest stop in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a July 3 co-headlining concert with Amos Lee at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie, Gray talked with us about his career, his latest album and what a co-headlining tour is really like.

CultureMap: You’ve been around for more than 20 years now. How do you feel about touring nowadays compared to when you first started?

David Gray: You can’t quite be as excited as you are when you first started because you’ve not done any of it yet. There’s a kind of insane amount of excitement and energy that you have when you’re 20-odd years old and somebody’s sending you over to America to go around.

You’ve never been to Texas, and you’re just laughing continually at just how crazy everything is — how big the portions are and how much A/C is cranked everywhere you go. You’re taking it all in; who can say that you could ever be that excited?

I know what a show is; I’ve done enough of them. That’s what’s most precious to me. The hotel rooms and the tour bus is all well and good, but it’s what happens out on the stage that I look forward to; in terms of that, I relish it.

But it’s more finite now. When you’re younger, you don’t think about how much of this stuff you might ever have to enjoy. But as you get on a bit, I don’t take it for granted at all. I see it as a precious thing that I’m allowed to do.

CM: How did the idea for a co-headlining tour with you and Amos Lee come about?

DG: I think it works well in the summer with these big venues if you’ve got somebody of a similar caliber, and hopefully it’s a good musical fit. I don’t know Amos’ music very well, I have to be honest; he’s not so well-known in the U.K. I’ve heard a few things online and he seems to have a beautiful voice. He’s obviously a popular artist over here, so I’m hoping it all fits together.

We had a tour with Ray LaMontagne five years ago which went very well, working along similar lines. So that’s the idea behind it all.

CM: Will you have a chance to work with Amos at all before the tour gets started?

DG: We’ll meet for the first time on the first show of the tour. That’ll be the first time I get to take a measure of his band and his sound and his whole vibe really, so I’m hoping for good things.

CM: Do you think there’s a chance that you’ll collaborate onstage?

DG: We played The Beatles’ “Dig a Pony” when we did the Ray LaMontagne tour; that was great fun. So if something like that could happen, I think everybody would enjoy it. We’ll just have to wait and see.

CM: You were in Dallas last year in support of Mutineers. Do you anticipate any significant changes to the set list on this tour?

DG: There’s a time pressure; it’s a much more condensed set. I would normally play for two-plus hours. When you’ve got an hour and 15 minutes, it doesn’t feel very long at all. It’ll feel like some kind of greatest hits package even with the new record thrown in.

The set will have a lot of momentum. I am going to change things around; we’ve worked up a load of numbers that I haven’t played from previous records for quite a while. There’s probably 40-odd songs to choose from, and within a revolving set it will change a lot night-to-night. But obviously the big numbers will turn up as they usually do to push the buttons where required.

I’m really looking forward to it. But co-headlining is obviously a different science, and on the few nights that I have to go on first, that’ll be a different thing as well. You write your set accordingly; it’s always changing.

This is a different band from the Mutineers tour; I stripped it back from eight people to five, and the backing singers are gone. So we’re back to a slightly looser, slightly different set-up with five of us playing and everyone singing. It’s a slightly different beast than the Mutineers tour, and there will be a different set to match.

CM: You’re playing here on July 3, and July 4 is Independence Day. Do you have anything special planned?

DG: No, we do the opposite of celebrate. All of us are clinging to the rags of the empire. We’ll just sit in misery somewhere.

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Movie Review

Lust eclipses romance in new adaptation of 'Wuthering Heights'

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights.

Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights is one of those classic books assigned in high school English classes, and it has received a number of film adaptations over the years, each of which differ in numerous ways from the source material. Purists won’t receive any reprieve from Emerald Fennell’s 2026 adaptation, with a title that is stylized as "Wuthering Heights” for good reason.

Cathy (played as an adult by Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) have known each other their entire lives, with Cathy’s alcoholic and inveterate gambler father (Martin Clunes) taking in Heathcliff on a whim when he was a boy. The two bond as they grow up together, although Cathy always seems to have an eye on moving up in society from their relatively impoverished lifestyle.

Cathy finally gets her wish when the rich Linton familyled by Edgar (Shazad Latif), moves in down the road, Despite discovering she has feelings for the now grown-up Heathcliff, Cathy sees Edgar as her way out and agrees to marry him. A scorned Heathcliff flees, returning years later as mysteriously wealthy. His reappearance ignites something in Cathy’s soul, and the two engage in a perhaps unwise affair.

Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn) infuses the dusty material with an energy that’s not typically present in stories set in this particular time and place. Aside from the occasional Charli XCX song (the singer created a whole concept album for the film), the film looks and feels like a period piece, albeit one that doesn’t get bogged down in the drudgery that can sometimes come from films set in the distant past.

Much of that has to do with the lust the filmmaker puts into the story. Even if you’re not familiar with Brontë’s book, you can rest assured that Fennell has strayed far from the text, giving Cathy and Heathcliff thoughts and actions unthinkable in the 19th century. Fennell plays with expectations by opening the film with audio featuring creaking noises and a man grunting, conjuring up a situation far different than what is actually happening, and she also makes liberal use of rain, sweat, and tears to make the actors enticing.

What she can’t do, however, is make the two lead characters compelling. Cathy is a striver who never seems to know what she wants out of life, and Heathcliff goes from a bore to a brute over the course of the film, with no clear indication that he likes anybody, much less Cathy. Anyone expecting some kind of grand romance will be disappointed as Fennell is much more interested in making the film weird, like having the walls of Cathy’s room look like her skin, complete with freckles.

Robbie and Elordi do well enough with the material, and it’s clear that both of them are committed to bringing Fennell’s vision to life. Their styles tend to balance each other out, and if the story had been committed to their characters’ relationship, they might be lauded for their chemistry. In the end, though, the supporting actors feel more interesting, including ones played by Hong Chau, Alison Miller, and Clunes.

This version of Wuthering Heights should never be construed as an alternative to reading the book for any high schoolers out there. While Fennell makes the film interesting with her technical filmmaking choices, the story never finds its footing as it fails to sell the one thing that it seems to promise.

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Wuthering Heights opens in theaters on February 13.

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