March 19, 2001

Badly Drawn Boy: Stockholm Sodra Teatern

Damon Gough shares a picture of his daughter as well as two hours-worth of beaufitul songs...

The sweet baroque sounds of the sixties orchestral pop heroes The Left Banke mingle with enthusiastic chatter of this lucky crowd. The 400 cool kids who got the tickets to see the behatted one shuffle to the beat of 'Walk Away Renee' in sweet anticipation.

And then, from the shadows emerges a shabby figure, like the bad little drawing he is, the eternal fag hanging from his lip, strumming an acoustic guitar. "From deep inside the tears, I'm forced to cry / From deep inside the pain, I chose to hide", he joins his favourite band on their tour de force. And in a matter of seconds, when in front of an audience, he isn't the shifty cartoon
anymore. The intro tape fades out, and Badly Drawn Boy the artist starts.

He opens the set with an energetic rendition of 'Fall In A River'. He's obviously happy with the new band, and the beautiful Stockholm set is a great audience. They laugh heartily to his jokes, and listen to his anecdotes with reverence. The most moving moment comes in the middle of the two hour gig, when he produces a picture of his 9 months old daughter Edith. His nature is to share, so he wants to share the picture of Edith with everybody in the audience. And indeed, he does. He hands the picture to the audience and asks to get the Edith back after the song. After one more song the picture is back in his wallet. According to his tour manager, the picture's never failed to come back.

BDB makes his audience feel that they are experiencing something very personal and unique, that's his knack. The stories and Bruce-covers might be same on every gig, but he isn't. After all he is a drawing that changes.

Otto Talvio

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