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Will It Be Badly or Goodly?
Torontoist first laid eyes on Badly Drawn Boy three-odd years ago, when he played the inaugural show of his first International tour at Montreal’s Club Soda. The man held on for three plus hours, and even when his band took an intermission, he sailed on, dazzling with a one-man piano medley. After the show, the band ate 99 cent pizza, and played foos at Club Foufounes, until their manager informed them that touring wasn’t all pizza on St. Catherine Street and chumming about with the locals.
Two years later Torontoist caught BDB again, this time at NYC’s Roseland Ballroom. The crowd was infinitely larger, the hall remarkably bigger. And this time, instead of playing for three cheerfully beautiful hours, dear Damon restarted a song three times, to the great vexation of the crowd. He didn’t smile a lot, and gone was the happy banter that had made his first shows pure awesome. Torontoist half-kidded that working with Hugh Grant had been some sort of soul-destroying experience.
And since then, BDB’s gotten a rep for being a bit of a temperamental artist. But despite his occasional moments of toqueish consternation, Torontoist still thinks there’s hope for a miraculous show when BDB blows into town. And lo, he’s blowing into town this evening. Maybe he’ll shine like the shining. He’s certainly capable of it. At the Phoenix.