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.