Gig played on 06/05/06

Damon Gough is in combative mood tonight. "People have been asking me if this is a break-up album", he rants. "No it isn't. Me and Claire are still going strong and we've got two lovely children, thank you very much." And not that we would wish unhappiness on anyone but that is Badly Drawn Boy's problem right there in a nut shell. It's nice that once in a while a rock star takes our hard earned cash and spends it on bricks and mortar and settling down with the wife - but it never leads to great art.

Five minutes walk away, rude girl, ASBO aristocrat Lily Allen is playing to an Astoria packed with the MySpace massive. Things, unfortunately, couldn't be more different in the rarefied Bloomsbury Ballroom. The average age of the crowd is way above that of the tea cosy wearing troubadour on stage and they are obviously more au fait with the Renault Espace than MySpace.

As soon as he launches into the vaguely melancholic new single "Born In The UK", the problem with BDB becomes immediately clear. He's got nothing left to say - and he's only six years into his career. All of the quirkiness that marked him out as a low-fi Mancunian Beck and Mercury Prize winner has been stripped away to leave a middle of the road performer already over the hill. His band (who are shockingly mediocre - at least four songs are fluffed or have to be restarted) give the whole sorry proceedings the air of a TK Maxx Lightning Seeds without the ambition or a Primark Bruce Hornsby. Without the range.

All of his new material, such as "Journey From A to B" and "The Way Things Used To Be" offer hackneyed and cliché strewn insights into life in Britain, while songs such as "Walk You Home" are mind-warpingly trite odes to his missus. The latter song in fact is more than vaguely reminiscent of "Romeo And Juliet" by Dire Straits - something that you sneakingly suspect Gough would take as a compliment. Such is the lacklustre performance however, that it ends up infecting his classic tunes such as "Silent Sigh" and "You Were Right", making them sound dreary and laid up with yuppy flu.

If you came tonight expecting pie and chips you will have left with a full stomach at least. But, if like Yahoo! Music, you wanted a seven course banquet, lovingly prepared from exciting ingredients you will be leaving with a scowl and growling stomach. If Damon Gough wants to keep the wife and kids in the style they're accustomed, he's going to need to start trying harder than this.

by John Doran