Amid the mainstage anthems at Shiiine On stood Bolton’s multi-instrumentalist icon Badly Drawn Boy on Sunday afternoon. Hangovers were rife among the large crowd which prompted the question, would this crowd go for him?
Images courtesy of Toni Underhill
The former Mercury Music Award prize winner was in an unusually talkative mood. He warmed the hearts of the main stage with stories of visiting Joe Strummer’s house and jokes about how he really should be with his mum on her 80th birthday.
There was a looseness to his introverted contemplations on stage, unrehearsed but open. A trait that seemingly doesn’t come easy to him. Gough’s shyness and free spirit became his greatest weapon during the Shiiine On set, however. The stories and set changed as the mood took him. The crowd was being let into his innermost feelings and thus, the love in the room grew to a tangible state.
Once he had let the room in, there was no turning back for the Dylan-inspired section of ‘The Shining’ and ‘A Minor Incident’. Gough dedicated the former to his brother who tragically passed away in July 2021. As his gorgeous north-west tone decreed “remember seeing your face shining my way” the room wept as one.
When he announced ‘A Minor Incident’ would follow, thousands of onlookers looked to the floor, the sky, or their pint. Anywhere but the loved ones they were with. The emotion was about to spill over. Mercifully, Gough regaled how he was tasked to write a Dylan-esque track for the suicide scene of About A Boy because they couldn’t afford the real deal. That flicker of humour steadied a room of souls who were picturing lost lives. His deep vocals go to the edge of Dylan’s drawl but vocally, he is blessed with empathy and sorrow like no other. Twenty years on, the way in which he places himself in Fiona Brewer’s position is still astonishing. During his harmonica solo, images of Toni Collette’s guilt-ridden and distressed performance flood to the fore but, the warmth in his acoustic playing and the melody embedded are so fine that they overcome.
This was not a set purely based on life’s darkest reflections though. Although performing alone, the technicolour vibrancy of ‘All Possibilities’ hope-drenched message resounded out like a beacon of light on the Somerset shores. The righteous punk of ‘Born In The UK’ took us through the seventies and the melodic splendour of ‘You Were Right’ dished out the fuzzy feelings cider no longer could on day three of a festival.
Sometimes it’s hard to love someone, not Badly Drawn Boy though. Gigs come and gigs go. Only the special ones can leave you with lifelong memories and this was one. The naturally hibernating soul of Gough was lured out for an embracing hug with like-minded souls. Post-Covid, this middle-aged crowd can see eternity for what it is, a fallacy. What he did on stage was reignite ageing souls with the purest form of themselves. The formative teen, wide-eyed, and longing to change the world for the better. Although his songs might quite be the answer, they were the soundtrack of many lives that Sunday afternoon.