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Badly Drawn rock star
Sunday, May 20 2001
I've been working on a new content management system for Vodkatea.com. It will allow the server to place content automatically based on the collective wisdom of my readership concerning the content they either read or avoid. My ability to create this system has benefited to a certain extent from what I've learned about rating music at my present place of employment. We'll see how this works once I release it.
In the evening John, Chun, John's sister Maria and I went to see Badly Drawn Boy at the El Rey Theatre on Wilshire. We rendezvoused beforehand at Chun's spartan Pottery Barned place in Beverly Hills. There's a school construction site just across the street from Chun's apartment, and John and I happened to see something of value there on the other side of the fence that we wanted. So we borrowed a big blue ball from Chun to throw back and forth and accidentally toss over the fence. It's a classic deception, but one I've never actually used.
The new episode of the Simpsons was good for a few laughs. When a giant Paul Bunyan-sized Homer Simpson was wondering when his relationship with a normal-sized Marge could finally be advanced to the next level, she said she'd need to take some yoga classes first. John thought that was pretty far out for broadcast television. As we waited around for the show, we were all sipping on Rip Van Winkle whiskey except for Maria. She's one of the very few people I know who can say "I don't drink" without sounding self-righteous.
On the drive to the show, we were wondering what the opening band might be. I pondered the matter for a moment and came up with what I thought would be the most thoroughly inappropriate band possible, Journey. The others in the car were somewhat younger than me and couldn't immediately think of any Journey songs, so I started singing, "...living in a lonely world, she took the midnight train goin' anywhere." John immediately got it and made his own contribution, "...smell of wine and cheap perfume!"
Directly in front of us going into the show where a gaggle of hip young men with greasy hair, matching Buddy Holly glasses and deliberately unstylish shoes. "I can't see this band, my hair's not dirty enough," said John.
Just like in a Foreigner song I once quoted in here, Badly Drawn Boy was a sold out show. But there was no standing in the rain, partly because there was no rain and partly because Chun had thought ahead and bought us all tickets for $27 each.
I went to do the generous thing and bought a round of Jack Daniels for just John and me and it came to $14. But what could I do? They had me and they knew it.
In the El Rey Theatre, a sold out show means 900 people gathered under one roof. When you have that many people of a certain youngish age all standing shoulder to shoulder in the dark looking at a stage it begins to look like rock and roll, even if it's for a band as adult contemporary as KCRW-approved Badly Drawn Boy.
But not so fast. Badly Drawn Boy's CD Hour of Bewilderbeast might sound tame after the refining process of the studio, but on stage it was clear that the Boy himself (Damon Gough) thought of himself as a rockstar. Clad in denim jacket, wallet-chain-equipped denim trousers and a cream and brown knitted watch cap pulled down nearly over his eyes, he stormed the stage accompanied by triumphal music from Jesus Christ, Superstar. He carried a similar affected (though somewhat distracted) rock star swagger throughout his performance, stopping his guitar strumming frequently to point at hot chicks in the crowd. As usual for live performances, the noisy distorted guitar sounded a whole lot more loud and obnoxious live than it did on the CD. But the Boy didn't stop with that. As if to showcase his enigmatic (and somewhat sadistic) British charm, he'd occasionally pass his guitar through a horrendous effect that generated painfully beating discordant combinations of notes, causing people to grasp their ears in pain. But as loud and obnoxious as the music ever got, as danceable as the beat ever became, very few in the crowd were moving at all. They were bopping their heads a little and that was all. Meanwhile, of course, John, Chun and I were dancing around just like we did back in early January, when we were falling in love with this music under the combined influence of inflated serotonin levels and sexual frustration. Given the music and the circumstances, it felt a little like our serotonin levels had been altered tonight, though they hadn't been. For her part, Maria was mostly doing what Maria always does, sitting by herself and scowling slightly and wishing she was somewhere else. I think she would have been happier of Badly Drawn Boy had been unable to make it and N'Sync showed up instead.
One of the highlights of my evening was when the Boy sang the line "Things come in ones, and double up to twos," and when it came (in the song "Everybody's Stalking"), Chun and John turned around and pointed at me with enthusiasm, since they know that's my favorite Badly Drawn Boy lyric.
The most remarkable moment of the show came a little before we left. Badly Drawn Boy was fresh out of songs, but he still wanted to play, so he began playing covers. The first cover he did might have been by Bruce Springstein (a detectable influence in his music) but then he completely floored us by doing a song by Journey, the very song we'd been singing in the car. My companions didn't admit this at the time, but this immediately promoted me from the rank of wiseman to that of soothsayer!
I found out the next day during an interview on KCRW that Badly Drawn Boy prefers to perform very long shows. Tonight he did indeed seem intent on just going on and on like some sort of Energizer Bunny, but soon after that Journey song we'd had our fill and headed back home.
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