Quietly entering the stage in low light Ray LaMontagne began his set with crowd favorites from his debut album, Trouble. As he began “Jolene” the crowd was pleased with his solo acoustic rendition and sang along with him shamelessly. He closed the first section of his four part set with arguably his most popular song, “Trouble.” Seeing the energy and pure vocal power LaMontagne put into this song, it was evident that not even a woman could “knock [him] down” during his performance.

The second part of LaMontagne’s show consisted entirely of songs from his most recent album, Ouroboros. During a Grammy Pro interview earlier this year, Ray shared that Ouroboros was written “as an entire piece, a 40-minute piece of music” and “to really enjoy it, or to really feel the emotional impact of it, I think you really need to sit down and listen to it as a whole.” And that, is exactly what he gave us! He performed the entire album from start to finish alongside The Jacket Boys, who LaMontagne introduced as “Tommy, Patrick, and Bo of My Morning Jacket.” Throughout the entirety of this set—which felt like an invitation to an intimate jam session—the Ouroboros album artwork was displayed as the backdrop. It shifted from its origin as an eclipse to an ever-moving representation of Planet Earth and a sun filled with the brightest colors of a tie-dye rainbow. Both musically stimulating and visually entertaining, this portion of his set carried the most energy and passion.

Moving into the third part of his set, LaMontagne kept The Jacket Boys on stage to play more crowd favorites from his 2014 release, Supernova. We were under “a lavender sky” when LaMontagne sang of a trip he never took to “Ojai” with a girl named Zoe who’s “so Supernova.” He sang to us through the “Airwaves” about how he, “Grew up fast in that Nebraska town” and spent his childhood at the “Drive-In Movies.” After this session of lyrical storytelling LaMontagne and The Jacket Boys left the stage as the lights dimmed and it appeared the show had come to an end.

After a poignant pause, the lights came back up and Ray and the boys reappeared for a three-song encore. The encore closed with “All the Wild Horses” and it was evident that LaMontagne was quietly encouraging his audience to take their carefree, showtime mentality into their everyday lives:

“May no man's touch ever tame you

May no man's reigns ever chain you

And may no man's weight ever lay freight your soul”

Check out all the show photos by Santa Barbara Bowl House Photographer, A Art Fisher, on our photo library.

Shelby Pool is an editor and author for the Santa Barbara Bowl Blog.