They decided to stay, which was a good move - the second half of the show ran like a greatest hits set, with all albums represented - highlights were "A Minor Incident" and "Silent Sigh," from About a Boy, "40 Days, 40 Fights" and "You Were Right" from Have You Fed the Fish? and "Fall in a River" from Bewilderbeast. There was a vocal contingent of the crowd that wanted to hear more Bewilderbeast, and although they were annoyingly persistent, Gough seemed a little angrier than the situation strictly justified - he told them that he wasn't playing much Bewilderbeast this gig, that he had new records, and called Bewilderbeast the "bane of my existence." He acquiesced, though, and played a couple more tracks off the album. When the audience cried out requests for more songs from the debut LP, Gough told them that he simply wasn't going to play it, and advised them to give up.

There were a couple of dark turns in Gough's mood. The most awkward moment in the evening came when Gough told a particularly noisy fan to shut up several times. In the middle of a monologue about how he wished everyone luck with an extended meditation on how he had gotten where he was without stepping on anyone, the fan's loud appreciation became too much for him, and he told her to "shut the fuck up." He warned her that he really meant it, then called her a "stupid bitch," and threw his drink at her - and continued with his feel-good (if somewhat self-aggrandizing) monologue.

It's enough to leave a fan with a sort of schizophrenic feeling about Badly Drawn Boy, simultaneously loving his music and intensely disliking him as a person. It doesn't help the confusion that much of Gogh's music is relentlessly positive and upbeat; I can't think of many artists who would write a song as incessantly cheerful and optimistic as "Four Leaf Clover," and the juxtaposition of such good feelings in the lyrics and such bitterness in the between-song banter can be a little difficult to reconcile.

Fans of Gogh would be well-advised to see him live - he peppers his set liberally with the stories behind his songs, and terrific anecdotes about his life and his success, but there's a real dark undercurrent to him that's quite unsettling. If anything, in person Gough comes off very much as he does in interviews - unquestionably talented, but also at times arrogant and angry, which left me as unsure how I felt about Badly Drawn Boy when I left the Avalon as I was when I went in.

Further Reading

• Badly Drawn Boy Official Site


• Badly Drawn Boy Tour Schedule


• Astralwerks Records Badly Drawn Boy site


• Avalon Hollywood site


• More from Matthew Poe