So a bit behind on this blog but I did want to talk about the Badly Drawn Boy show at the Troubadour I went to December 15th. It was night 1 of 2 and was quite an interesting show... You could tell he was having a tough night and was getting a bit frazzled by the sound and the crowd. This was the night before his on stage c-bomb laden meltdown. Won't link to that but its easy enough to find. Most of his complaints were about on stage sound. Now I have seen the guy 4 times. Twice at the troubadour, and at two other venues. What is interesting is that the only time I have heard him bitch about sound was at the troubadour... By the end of the night (when I shot the video below) I was standing next to the PA and I can vouch for the fact that the sound was shit. That said, I also can vouch for the fact that I have personally played through worse, no problem.
One of the nuances about Damon that makes him so interesting and fun to see is his neurotic perfectionism. It causes him to repeatedly start and stop songs to get the tuning right or to redo a loop. It also causes him to flat out just change his mind on what he wants to play halfway through. For a long time fan, this is part of the fun, for someone unfamiliar with this, it can be... well... a bit stressful and frustrating. I can see how a few ignorant noobs might start talkin crap when he's doing this. The night I saw him he was realy in rare form. Several times during the show he cycled intros of 5-6 songs either trying to remember them or testing how he felt about them. Now, I might do this when I'm nervously trying to impress a girl at a party, but for a guy whos been doing this for 10 years you have to wonder what was up...
That all said, I highly encourage people to go see this guy! Going to a show is a bit of a gamble, as you never quite know who is going to show up. I've seen him do good, bad, and meh. The one thing I've never seen him do is boring!
