To the 02 Academy in Bristol for a gig by Damon Gough, AKA Badly Drawn Boy, a welcome diversion, I hope, from the darkness in our wider world and the upsets and distresses in mine. It’s a cool, some might say cold, March evening, the bus is almost full, packed with noisy students out on the weekend. I envy them only their youth as they navigate their way through an increasingly chaotic and uncertain world. Soon, the bus arrives on the city centre and upon disembarking I make my way past the numerous kebab and burger vans. ‘Excellent food’ boasts one. By the time these places get busy, I suspect most customers will be too far gone to tell whether the food really is excellent or just warmed up gristle.
There are three main gigs in Bristol this Friday night. As well as Badly Drawn Boy in the 02, punk legends The Damned are at the Beacon and indie rockers Doves are at SWX. If nightlife is changing, which is to say less people are coming into town and the ones who are tend to go home earlier, no one told Bristol, at least not tonight.
I walk past the Beacon, which looks rammed. I’m old enough to remember The Damned’s fan base in the 1970s. Judging from initial appearances, tonight’s crowd is made up of the same people. Mainly men, with increased poundage and far less hair (join the club), there to hear the hits and nothing but the hits. Of the three big gigs tonight, only Doves will be playing new music.
Arriving at the 02, I find an enormous queue, which is a pleasant surprise. Sort of. It’s a terrible venue at the best of times – basically an old cinema with the seats and screen removed – and the ideal attendance will be a couple of hundred or so short of capacity, which is 1600. Anything close to capacity is unpleasant, anything way below capacity provides an atmosphere akin to a funeral director. I finally get in, after a full search by a security man which reveals I am carrying dangerous weapons, which include my reading glasses and my asthma inhaler. It is just before 8.00 pm and the gig is due to start now. No support: just two sets by Damon, the first of which is a performance of his 2000 Mercury Prizewinning album The Hour Of Bewilderbeast. I go to the bar and buy a pint of Angelo Poretti lager, a bang average pint it is, too, costing a few coppers short of £8 and make my way to to the lower floor of the venue, which is busy but not oppressively so.
These days, Gough normally tours alone, presumably the costs of having a band with him are prohibitively expensive, except for this tour where he has a talented four piece along with him to fatten out the sound and, frankly, to give a better musical experience. A few minutes late, the lights dip and he shambles on stage, thanks Bristol for coming out to see him and explains the first set will be his seminal The Hour Of Bewilderbeast in full and the second some other songs from his catalogue. As with most artists, he is playing the exact same setlist every night and I have already checked Setlist FM so I know what’s coming and when.
I know a lot if his songs a bit and some a lot so I am looking forward to his first great classic Once Around The Block which comes in as song number eight. To his great credit, Gough doesn’t mess around with a song he must have played live more than any other and plays it straight. It’s brilliant and for me to hear it live is bucket list stuff.
But there are what Gough describes as “technical issues” and he is frequently glowering and swearing at members of the crew. When some people in the crowd call for him to “cheer up” something snaps. “Fuck off,” he shouts to the crowd. “Don’t fucking tell me to cheer up.” He repeats the insults a few times and then returns to the music.
My first reaction is to walk out. I have not paid good money for the artist concerned to shout abuse at fellow audience members. I decide to stay because there are more of his best songs still to come but for a while I am disengaged.
A few songs later, Gough apologises for his outbursts. His partner and oldest children are there, he says and “I’m doing my best” despite the technical issues. To be fair, he never loses the audience. There is a lot of love out there. Maybe this is always what it’s like?
After the break, we are in to a run of classic Gough songs. You Were Right, my favourite the magnificent All Possibilities and Tony Wilson Said among them. In between songs in the second set, Gough explains how his struggles have affected him, as if to explain his behaviour. I know about his issues – marriage breakdown, alcoholism and depression – and to be absolutely fair, when he refers to his challenges he adds, “Haven’t we all?” which I thought was the right thing to say. He mostly won me back at this point because I came along to the gig in a low mood and I, selfishly, wanted to be entertained. For a brief moment, my empathy had deserted me. I had it back now.
As I say, there’s a lot of love in the room for Damon among this mostly middle-aged crowd. At times, they appear to carry him along, taking the music to greater heights. As a well over two hour set, which will comprise 28 songs, I know what the last song is going to be and I make my way to the exit, to head to my bus stop as soon as it ends. The last song, Promises, ends and soon I am heading to my bus stop, avoiding scores of loud people in wanky fancy dress suits and loud dresses, still celebrating the Cheltenham Horse Death Festival. I appear to be the only person on the centre who is not munching their way through a grease burger or a kebab. I avoid standing in some fresh vomit at the end of Baldwin Street, pass some paramedics and police officers who are seeing to – yes you guessed it – seriously pissed-up people who may or may not have been fighting. Either way, there is a whole lot of shouting going on.
Soon, I am leaving the bus at Great Stoke, saying ‘Cheers, Drive‘, the traditional Bristol thank you, to the driver of the bus and I am walking home slowly, the cold air having set off my asthma again.
I am glad I went to see Badly Drawn Boy. I own most of his records and there’s not a dud among them. I was pleased, too, that he attracted such a good crowd because I feared that his lower profile today might see a half-empty Academy. The venue is crap, the beer is crap but at least it’s not oppressively hot these days, with a decent aircon making the place acceptably cool. It was £30-odd well spent. No support act – thank God: with the odd exceptions, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Montrose in the 1970s, I hate support acts – just a highly talented singer songwriter respecting his own catalogue and giving us what we wanted.
Thanks, Damon. I don’t know if I will see you and your woolly hat again. You almost let me down until I got my shit together, as you did yours. Not quite a great gig but a bloody good one. Hope the rest of the tour goes well.
