SOMETIMES words are just not enough and it is a rare poet who can sum up exactly how we all feel at a particular moment in time.

Singer-songwriter Badly Drawn Boy, aka Damon Gough, is one such talent. This reviewer sadly is not, so conveying more than two-and-a-half hours of pure joy into 250 words is nigh on impossible.

Last night, York became the epicentre of the British music scene as the Mercury Music Prize-winning talent played his first gig in the country this year, exclusively airing material from his new album, One Plus One Is One.

Gough opened the much-anticipated set with a calypso version of the Jackson 5's I Want You Back, then A Minor Incident.

If the first hour was a little erratic, he really let his star shine after a short break, joshing with the crowd and effortlessly creating a beautiful wall of sound with only his voice and guitar or keyboard, now and again adding in the band.

Something To Talk About, The Shinning, Once Around The Block, Everybody's Stalking, Disillusion - they were all there and more lovely than ever, especially You Were Right which he dedicated to the late Elliott Smith.

The new tracks, such as Holy Grail and This Is That New Song, showed promise, but it was difficult to see what direction he has taken due to the stripped-down arrangements.

A triumphant encore followed and the crowd tumbled out into the streets of York with a collective warm glow that only a truly special act can create.

Updated: 09:52 Saturday, March 06, 2004