Badly Drawn Boy Concert Review

Sometimes a concert can just amaze you. Tonight's Badly Drawn Boy show at the Newport was one of those concerts for me. Damon Gough (who is Badly Drawn Boy, but he also had a crack band assembled for this tour), did not get off to a good start with the show. Microphones weren't grounded, monitors weren't loud enough, guitars weren't properly tuned, needless to say lots of problems. The first 4 to 5 songs that the band played, Gough stopped the song either a few seconds or a few minutes into the song. He had told the audience that he was going to play his new album in its entirety from start to finish. I was starting to think that this was going to be a horrible concert, that Damon Gough's perfectionism was actually insanity. A lesser artist would have given up and just done an abbreviated concert. Not Badly Drawn Boy, they got their act together and ended up making through the entire album and lots of their other songs. The band ended up playing for well over 3 hours. Their energy increased with each and every song that they played. I started to realize that I wasn't witnessing perfectionism, I was witnessing dedication. People paid to see him, and he was going to give them their money's worth.

It was a concert that made me think of things that really have nothing to do with music. People who show that sort of dedication in any aspect of their life just amaze me. They do what they do well, and they do it because they love it. It's not about the money, it's not about the fame, it's not about the boss. It's what a work ethic really is, before someone else twists it for their own need.