Saturday, February 17th, 2007
Badly Drawn Boy, Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 16th February 2007
You’ve gotta love eBay. A week before the gig, with all the standing tickets sold out, I noticed that the support act was none other than Malcolm Middleton. Maybe worth the effort after all, I thought. Luckily there’s always some poor bugger who cant get rid of his tickets, and has to flog them for half face value. Cha ching!
Malcy’s short set goes down quite well, but without a full band it struggles to carry the same liveliness of Into The Woods. New album sounds good though.
The thing about the Damon Gough live experience™ is his ability to reinvent his songs such that you give that bop of recognition to a new song you’ve never heard before, yet go for a wizz just as he starts playing a ska rendition of your favourite b-side. But the crowd has no such trouble with his solo intermission of Once Around The Block, The Shining and probably my favourite BDB track A Minor Incident. Of course I stand corrected during the encore when the piano breaks into my actual favourite ‘You Were Right’, tonights obituary verse namechecking Steve Irwin and Richard Whiteley.
All in all a superb (and lengthy - 2+ hours!) performance from the badly drawn one, and the best tenner I’ve spent in a long time!
