Boston Globe: Dido Makes The Leap

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POP MUSIC

Suddenly this summer: Dido makes the leap

By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 6/3/2001

For many artists, summer is just a business-as-usual trek through oversized sheds. For Dido, the new British superstar, it’s the fulfillment of a dream. She has jumped from clubs to amphitheaters in just a matter of months – and she intends to enjoy it.

”I’ve been planning on this moment for many, many years,” says the 29-year-old Dido, whose vocal on her hit song ”Thank You” was sampled on Eminem’s runaway hit, ”Stan,” and who has sold 6 million copies worldwide of her debut album, ”No Angel.” It is an ambient-pop record whose honesty cuts into your heart.

”I want this to be a real personal show,” Dido says of a tour that hits the 19,900-capacity Tweeter Center on June 24 with fellow countrymen Travis. ”Whether I succeed or not is a whole other thing, but at least it’s my challenge for the summer.

”I’m not expecting to fill these places. I’m just expecting to have a nice concert outside with lots more people than I would have had before,” says Dido, a former literary agent whose mother named her for the the Queen of Carthage in Virgil’s ”Aeneid.”

It is the third straight summer that Dido has toured America, where she is a much bigger star than in her native England. In fact, her friends ”can’t believe” that her opening act is Travis, whose popularity far surpasses hers in London.