Ray LaMontagne, Royal Festival Hall

Rock-folkies can sure be snobs. Even though New Hampshire-born Ray LaMontagne is still relatively unknown over here, there are still purists who view his records with suspicion. They feel the voice is just too huge, the sound too commercial. The irony is that no-one courts attention less than LaMontagne. Last night he delivered the entire concert from a static spot just to the left of the band. And apparently he’s as withdrawn offstage as he is on. But the RFH saw him focussed. Focussed on finding the right way to channel that part-bluebird, part-bear he has for a voice.

And on the strength of this second night at the Southbank Centre, that right way is Americana. Identity has always been an issue for LaMontagne. His music is often categorised as folk-rock, but in his first three records it seemed to be as much blues or soul. Maybe that was because LaMontagne himself took years to be comfortable in his own skin. He grew up a loner who liked to wander the woods, and later worked in a shoe factory to avoid the rat race.

No doubt the story’s been spun, but at the very least this should mark him out as something other than some preppy muso who has grown a beard. No doubt the fact that his music has previously gone off in various tangents has caused detractors to complain there’s a lack of authenticity. But on the latest offering, God Willin' and the Creek Don’t Rise, a Grammy winner, and the first to feature his band, The Pariah Dogs, LaMontagne seems to have found the right home for his voice.

And even before he’d reached the stage support band The Secret Sisters, later to become honorary Pariah Dogs, had used their Southern Gothic harmonies to transport the Festival Hall to a place far away where God is very real and the air hangs thick with swamp-fog and Spanish moss. “For the Summer”, LaMontagne’s opener, was a wonderful floating example of contemporary Americana, reminiscent of Gomez’s “Here Comes the Breeze”. You certainly wouldn't want to call it modern country as LaMontagne, coaxed out of his shyness about an hour later, pronounced “All modern country is shit..........”. That may be blunt, but the music never was, and the evening was loaded with mellifluous and nuanced country-rock, bathed in Hawaiian guitars, and wistful melancholy vocals. “New York City's Killing Me”, was suitably regretful, and the sweetly melodic “Beg, Steal, and Borrow” with its talk of “slack-jawed fools/howling at the moon” was full of wonder.

Possibly I was lucky with my seat but the sound I heard was immaculate. In particular the lead voice, which in much of the new material remained tastefully restrained. It’s the sort of trick that Joe Cocker and Tom Jones could have used in their careers. The Secret Sisters were invited onto the stage to help out with “Aching all the Time”, and “You Can Bring Me Flowers” which with its new arrangement could have been a Bonnie Prince Billy number.

And then for two numbers all hell broke loose. Up to this point The Pariah Dogs (pictured above) had been shuffling around like hairy musical introverts. But “Repo Man”, which undeniably owes a debt to John Martyn’s “I’d Rather be the Devil” didn’t know the meaning of restraint. And once it was all coming out there was no stopping it. LaMontagne pulled out a blues harp, and a voice distortion box and for the duration of “Henry Nearly Killed Me” he was like a medicine man in the Old West living in some hinterland between life and death. There wasn’t much sense of theatre elsewhere in the night, but those songs compensated.

The solo spot, comprising “Like Rock’n’Roll and the Radio” and “Are We Really Through?” was suitably intimate, and the trad. country of “Mama Said”, and “I’ve Forgotten More Than You’ll Ever Know”, again featuring The Secret Sisters, were a real treat.

But the highlight and lowlights for me were both when LaMontagne stepped aside from Americana. “Sarah”, with its Nick Drake-style guitar line, had him both lyrically and musically at his most personal and expressive. But the soul-lite of “You are the Best Thing” left me cold and whilst the closer “Trouble” was superficially powerful it soon felt overblown, like Andrew Strong’s drunken version of “Mustang Sally” in the film The Commitments. I think it’s songs like those that the hipsters so object to. However, not only has LaMontagne’s song-writing evolved, but now that he has started to produce himself the tall beardie from Maine has really now become his own man. If you pooh-pooh a concert like this then it’s you who are missing something. The crowd certainly thought so. I could hardly get out for all the shouting and cheering.

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Watch a video of Ray LaMontagne's "Trouble"