Badly Drawn Boy @ Old Fruitmarket, 20 Oct

“Not exactly playing the hits am I?” notes Badly Drawn Boy after airing tracks from 1997’s EP1. That’s not quite accurate – in tonight’s mammoth set, a patchily-scattered Fruitmarket audience is treated to the Santana-cheese riff of Disillusion, Silent Sigh (given added guitar and oomph), and an opening run performed solo and acoustically that includes cuts both early (The Shining) and more recent (last year’s Is There Nothing We Could Do?).

Damon is on affable form, though the self-deprecating banter is in full flow (he introduces ex-ad track All Possibilities by apologising to “anyone who bought a shit product from Comet”). Later, he teases by alternating between intros for You Were Right and Once Around the Block but is forgiven since both get played eventually, while mixed-bag tracks from his recent seventh album are received politely. But while offering value, his lengthy set could survive pruning – with an odd karaoke Thunder Road finale the first for the shears. [Chris Buckle]