Badly Drawn Boy

Damon Gough may have finally got a new hat, but little else has changed in the Badly Drawn Boy live experience. The whole exasperating but bloody entertaining farce is still part spoken word, part stand up, part witty raconteur and part carry on being a rock star. Unquestionably, the real bonus of this two-night stint in the Olympia is the presence of a certain Andy Rourke on bass, one time member of the finest band ever known to Manchester and perhaps the world. While his former bandleader was so renowned for being such a bigmouth he made it one of his anthems, I doubt that Rourke ever put up with such a hyperactive live wire as Gough.

Songs stutter to a messy halt several times over the course of the evening, but such messiness and blatant disregard for performance convention has become the BDB hallmark and what’s more it works. The last time he gigged in this theatre it was no less than a two and a half hour marathon, which was extremely impressive given the fact that Gough had only released one album at the time. Tonight, it chugs along for a similar duration but never, ever gets boring. Some of the new tracks from Have You Fed the Fish? AKA All Possibilities have already grown into wonderful showstoppers, especially the title track, ‘Tickets to What You Need’ and the current single ‘You Were Right’.

The sprawling pop masterpiece The Hour of Bewilderbeast, and this year’s About A Boy soundtrack, are also fairly represented. Add plenty of hilarious ad-libs and a belly-achingly funny impression of Bono plucking a girl out of the crowd to dance onstage, and you’ve got one helluva show.

In a world where the art of playing live is often taken far too seriously for its own good, Badly Drawn Boy is the ultimate antidote to pompous string sections and stuffy posturing. Even yer man from The Smiths was grinning like a loon!