I went to see Badly Drawn Boy last night at Webster Hall – it’s great to be able to walk to such gigs, even it is below freezing (someone else took some pictures, here). He is something of a contradiction, an anti-show man show man. After the first song, his second was an instrumental and he played a bunch of new things, all the time apologizing for playing new things, even though he’s got a new album out. Then he played a bunch of solo acoustic things, mostly old, which were fantastic, including The Shining.
A bit later, with the band back he played a couple of songs then walked off the stage and left the band to do some awkward jamming. He returned saying, “I hope you didn’t expect a costume change – I was having a cigarette in the cupboard.”
Then the penultimate song of his set was a quasi-Vegas style number called (I think) ‘To you from me,’ where he took the mike out of its stand and walked around the front of the stage shaking his hands and thanking the audience, which he appeared to do without being tongue in cheek about it, but he still made an unlikely crooner in his beanie hat and combat jacket.