live @ 930 Club 11.4.2000
Space does not permit listing all the things Badly Drawn Boy did at his nearly three-hour show at the 930 Club Saturday night, but here are some: climbing into the balcony to improvise a bad funk song; dancing around to a tape recording of the theme from “Peanuts”; kissing both male and female audience members on the mouth ; spending 15 minutes figuring out Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”; driving the majority of the crowd out the door; stuffing a towel in his pants, and playing Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” as “I’m On Fire For You Washington!”.
Playing just his second-ever American concert, Manchester, England’s Boy (real name Damon Gough) was promoting his Mercury Prize-winning album “Hour of the Bewidlerbeast” (he actually played some songs from the record) and living up to his reputation as a wildly unpredictable live performer. Boy brought along a band, but they spent more time concocting background sounds for Boy’s made-up songs than playing his real ones. Indeed, versions of “Camping Next to Water” and “Magic in the Air” functioned more as breaks from BDB’s constant, droll monologue than musical achievements. The most affecting musical moment was actually a take on The Left Banke’s “Walk Away Renee”, a song whose melodic ache appears in many of Boy’s own tunes.
Melody wasn’t foremost on BDB’s mind Saturday. More like melodic and comedic theater. As he said at one point, “ Why can’t there be both? I write beautiful songs and I put my life on the line”. Though the former was in short supply and it was hard to tell if the latter was an ironic sendup of the rock concert or just wandering around on stage, Badly Drawn Boy--somehow--was never awful. Only awfully entertaining.
Washington Post, November 2000
