About Last Night…David Thomas Broughton

admin on Jul 18th 2008

Last night, in a small, candle-lit room near Kensal Green, David Thomas Broughton put on one of the best shows I’ve ever experienced. It’s not often that I get to walk away feeling completely exhilarated but when it does happen, this is the reason I’ll make a two-hour round trip to an empty bar in a place I’ve never been before, night after night.

For someone who appears to be going through his set in a completely random manner, he was in total control, commanding a reverential attentiveness for a performance that doesn’t pause for applause. Punching the wall, rearranging the candles and bottles on everyone’s table, kicking over his own pint, using a tape-recorder to squeal and grind out a quasi-rhythm, banging his equipment in time, and of course, coming into the audience to sing…all in one brilliantly orchestrated movement of expression. These things may not sound particularly impressive in isolation, but it was the sensation it produced as you watched it all unfold together: to be wowed and transfixed in the most life-affirming way possible.

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Photo by Wezzoribrezzo