Footage courtesy of lango1967@YouTube

An hour into David Gray’s show Friday night at Boston’s Citi Wang Theatre, there was a nice surprise: Despite the heavy flow of chilled Chardonnay, there hadn’t been a single audience call-out for “Babylon,” Gray’s ubiquitous hit from 2000 that catapulted the British singer/songwriter to international acclaim.

And when Gray finally unfurled that anthem mid-set, giving it a breezy makeover flush with acoustic guitars and light percussion, the audience frothed into a spirited but seated sing-along.

The show — which at times was gloriously unhinged but far too often as buttoned-up as the band’s matching dark suits — kicked off Gray’s new tour for Draw the Line, his first studio album in four years.

The tour finds Gray at a commercial crossroads, especially in this country, where his fame was essentially fleeting after he broke through with 1999’s White Ladder. With nearly a decade of dust on it, that seminal record clearly paved the road for the rise of other heart-on-sleeve UK acts like Coldplay, Damien Rice, and Keane.

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