Live Music Review: Paul Draper at the Rescue Rooms

Words: Paul Klotschkow
Tuesday 06 March 2018
reading time: min, words

Chaotic scenes at the ex-Mansun man's gig in Nottingham...

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“Get off, you c*nt”, came a voice from the audience. It’s fair to say that tonight’s show wasn’t going to plan.

What was supposed to be a celebratory performance featuring a track-by-track run through Mansun’s debut album Attack Of The Grey Lantern to mark 21 years since its release, as well as songs from his recently released and warmly received debut solo album Spooky Action, turned in to strange and shambolic show from Paul Draper.

Draper was clearly in a bad place, a dark cloud hanging over him from the start. When he eventually made it out for the opening set of solo songs, looking crumpled as if he is kept folded away in a flightcase in between shows, he could barely muster the energy to bother to strum his guitar and at times even sing. He started berating the keyboard player for something before walking off and cutting this section of the show short.

Swigging copious amounts of red wine throughout the night, Draper was obviously too inebriated and not in the right frame of mind to be up on stage. Something had clearly gotten to him and he had decided to take his sour mood out on the audience.

A scheduled 15-20 minute interval turned in to a 50 minute wait and you wondered if he was ever going to return. 

When the band returned to perform what should have been a triumphant blast through the cinematic prog of Attack Of The Grey Lantern, Draper forgot the words to the opening track The Chad Who Loved Me and quietly abandoned the song.

What followed was a disastrous attempt to play the rest of the album. In between forgetting the words, Draper shuffled around on stage, sat on the drum riser, threatened to smash his guitar, and switched between berating the audience or muttering something about his band members. Jaws were slamming against the Rescue Rooms floor. 

To add to the surreal scene that was unfolding in front of us, Draper had an iPad on stage that he had been using for lyrical prompts; he started scrolling through it and it must have had a connection and was pinging notifications to him containing disgruntled social media posts from the audience. 

There were some further incoherent rantings before his tour manager eventually rescued the night by persuading Draper to get off stage and end the gig. 

There were moments of light amongst the chaos, though. Not enough praise can be heaped upon Draper’s band who ably held it together and like the band on the Titanic kept on playing as the show sank to constantly lower depths around them. They played with an enthusiasm and professionalism that was sadly lacking elsewhere, and brought a deft touch to the songs. And very occasionally there were tiny slithers of what the gig could’ve been - in particular, when Draper managed to hold it together long enough that both Mansun’s Only Love Song and Disgusting actually resembled something close to how the rest of the show should have sounded. 

It was a car crash of a gig and Draper's behaviour was embarrassing. It is easy to laugh at someone too drunk to perform, but it was much more than that, it was a troubling display and I hope that he’s okay.

Paul Draper was at Rescue Rooms on Monday 5 March 2018.

Paul Draper website

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