Badly Drawn Boy live at Mandela Hall, Belfast

He takes to the stage to a smattering of polite applause and threatens to leave it in a thundercloud strop. With an altogether too reserved (for his liking) audience offering a lukewarm reception to newer material such as ‘Degrees Of Separation’ and ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change Your Mind’, Badly Drawn Boy is threatening to throw the tea-cosy out of the pram. “If you don’t liven up I’m fucking off,” he says, flicking a plectrum at the front row. The bad boy Mancunian stance is at odds with his hangdog facials though, and he looks lost, the puppy left in the pound. Behind his back the band exchange knowing glances: it’s gonna be one of those nights, very short or very long.
It’s the latter, and, from the most inauspicious of starts, Damon Gough manages to turn in a triumphant two hour performance. Remarkably the bullying schtick works, and the Mandela Hall crowd are coerced to whoop and holler. Gough mines rich ore from the back catalogue, ensuring a performance that was leaden becomes something to truly treasure.
‘Pissing In The Wind’ is forlorn, deeply affecting, ‘Silent Sigh’ twists our melons, rubbing us up the right way, whilst the climactic, ‘Magic In The Air’, proves a self-fulfilling prophecy. And there’s even an apology for his former petulance. “Sorry ‘bout earlier,” he says, “it’s just I want each gig to be the best it can be, I feel the weight of that.” Lacking grace under pressure, perhaps, but Badly Drawn Boy certainly merits our great expectations.