Music > Live Reviews

Badly Drawn Boy

EPIC Studios

26/03/23

Damon Gough aka Badly Drawn Boy first burst onto the scene in 2000 on the back of his critically acclaimed debut album, The Hour Of Bewilderbeast. This magnificently beautiful album also won the Mercury Music Prize that year too, beating off competition from no other than Doves to the much-coveted music award. He is now a remarkable nine albums into his musical career but hasn’t released anything since his last album in 2020 (Banana Skins). and it’s really great to at last get to see the iconic woolly hat in the flesh! He is back on the road with this a ‘fan pleasing tour’ and there are quotes online that he has promised us something very special in the set lists. Apparently, we can look forward to some old favourites along with some rarities and deep cuts from his twenty-five years as a recording artist.

Gough said of  the up-and-coming tour, "I'd like to think that this is the tour I'd want to see if I was a long-time fan."

He is a renowned chatty man, who loves to tell a story or three in between songs and he certainly doesn’t disappoint at all on a ‘let’s have a chat level’ or indeed musically this evening. He is pure quality but appears very genuinely to be quite nervous and somewhat apprehensive, there is most certainly some great craic with the crowd on the back of how he feels throughout with a four hundred and forty all seater sell-out crowd. As the show goes on its, very clear that Gough is his own worst critic. He regularly asks if he’s sounding okay and when he’s sounding amazing (which was throughout the full two-hour set) he tells us that he’s still not sounding right! The man is a perfectionist, he but just sounds incredible and this is no better exemplified than when he kick starts All Possibilities, his effects for the guitar intro are absolutely insane and then towards its conclusion he throws in a verse of the Sister Sledge classic, Thinking Of You.

He informs us early on that he has some eighty songs written down on this music stand, he just needs to remember them all and throughout the next two hours, I think that he truly believes that he would get to do them all! He manages twenty-three in total, but that more than satisfies our souls as he strums and twinkles through a fantastic set list with material taken from his very humble beginnings through to his more well-known classics, they all, each and every one of them come over so very fine indeed.

Songs such as Shake The Rollercoaster are new to me and most of the audience, if very old to him. But that one and other songs from those early days fit in like a good comfortable pair of shoes, it’s a great blend of material. Of course, songs such as The Shining (makes your heart melt), Stone On The Water, Have You Fed The Fish and Pissing In The Wind raise the tempo and there’s much more besides.

Around The Block sounds incredible and is a request that he captures from the floor as he realises that he’s running out of time with just some thirty minutes to go. We also have the delectable sounds of Silent Sign as he strides over to the piano, and as soon as he touches the ivories, it’s a moment of pure joy, it sounds so lovely, just sumptuous.
He over runs on his timings on the extensively long proposed set list, as by now he is much more relaxed and seems to be really enjoying himself, forgetting in the process to take five minutes for a break and then do the customary encore, so he just keeps going and we all gain an extra song or maybe even two in the process.

There is a story to be told about how he met Hugh Grant (a thoroughly decent chap by all accounts) and came to be involved in the About A Boy soundtrack, the writers were both fans of BDB. He also recounts his joy at appearing on an early John Peel festive fifty.

His final story of the night is about his brother Simon, who he sadly lost a year and a half ago, he was a big Strokes fan and they all became good friends, meeting up backstage at gigs etc. He plays a version of their song Someday in his memory and it is very touching, you can feel the emotion and love in his voice.

Whether he is on piano or weaving magic on his guitar, there really is magic in the air. He is back, not that he ever left our hearts and hopefully there will be some new material in the very near future.

Gough is a well-seasoned musician, a super talent, a true professional and it has been a real pleasure to spend some time in his company this evening at the City’s most up and coming music venue. He is an unmistakable, genius of a talent and I hope that its not too long before we see him back here. What a lovely man he is too. And yes of course, he did have the hat on!