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tamaranthI've liked Robyn Hitchcock's music for twenty years. Last night I saw him live for the first time, at the Garage in Highbury.
Tickets were courtesy of a friend who'd booked and then couldn't make it, so I didn't expect to see anyone I knew. Not only did I bump into Howard WINOLJ, but Mark (who'd taken the other ticket) ran into an old friend of his.
We were there in time for the support band, Viarosa: a not unmitigated blessing, as their brand of alt.country was mostly rather subdued and melancholy. They're a six-piece outfit (well, five-piece last night, as their fiddle player was absent): steel guitar / mandolin, guitar/vocals, female vocals, double bass and percussion. The songs weren't at all bad, and the one cheery number they did ('All This Worry'?) was absolutely splendid: perhaps I just wasn't in a melancholy enough mood.
Robyn Hitchcock appeared on his own at first, raising fears of an all-acoustic gig (which I also wasn't in the mood for): then was joined, over the next five or six songs, by the rest of his band. Hell, he looked good: has to be fifty, and I remember him (from publicity photos only, alas) as dark-haired rather than blond, but still very much in his prime. Also very tall.
I didn't know half the songs, having rather lost touch with new additions to the ouevre. I recognised 'Television'; 'Leppo and the Jooves'; 'My Wife and my Dead Wife'; 'Kingdom of Love'; 'Brenda's Iron Sledge' (incorporating a delightful cover of 'Funky Town', which some of you may be old enough to remember from the soundtrack of some C-list surf movie); and 'I Often Dream of Trains', dedicated to 'British Rail' (sic). There was also an unadventurous cover of Rose Royce's 'Love Don't Live Here Anymore'. But the crowd (full of weirdos, we concluded: people in suits, people in ubiquitous black leather jackets, people in Rock Gear) loved him, and Mark & I (sitting at the back, where I could actually see most of what was going on: the Garage is a tiny venue, and very dark, and doesn't have much rake to its floor) thought it was Well Cool. I'd've bounced around to 'Brenda's Iron Sledge', but I was fine where I was ...
All in all, most enjoyable though rather more low-key than I expected after twenty years of very vague anticipation. Would go again, though, for definite.
Tickets were courtesy of a friend who'd booked and then couldn't make it, so I didn't expect to see anyone I knew. Not only did I bump into Howard WINOLJ, but Mark (who'd taken the other ticket) ran into an old friend of his.
We were there in time for the support band, Viarosa: a not unmitigated blessing, as their brand of alt.country was mostly rather subdued and melancholy. They're a six-piece outfit (well, five-piece last night, as their fiddle player was absent): steel guitar / mandolin, guitar/vocals, female vocals, double bass and percussion. The songs weren't at all bad, and the one cheery number they did ('All This Worry'?) was absolutely splendid: perhaps I just wasn't in a melancholy enough mood.
Robyn Hitchcock appeared on his own at first, raising fears of an all-acoustic gig (which I also wasn't in the mood for): then was joined, over the next five or six songs, by the rest of his band. Hell, he looked good: has to be fifty, and I remember him (from publicity photos only, alas) as dark-haired rather than blond, but still very much in his prime. Also very tall.
I didn't know half the songs, having rather lost touch with new additions to the ouevre. I recognised 'Television'; 'Leppo and the Jooves'; 'My Wife and my Dead Wife'; 'Kingdom of Love'; 'Brenda's Iron Sledge' (incorporating a delightful cover of 'Funky Town', which some of you may be old enough to remember from the soundtrack of some C-list surf movie); and 'I Often Dream of Trains', dedicated to 'British Rail' (sic). There was also an unadventurous cover of Rose Royce's 'Love Don't Live Here Anymore'. But the crowd (full of weirdos, we concluded: people in suits, people in ubiquitous black leather jackets, people in Rock Gear) loved him, and Mark & I (sitting at the back, where I could actually see most of what was going on: the Garage is a tiny venue, and very dark, and doesn't have much rake to its floor) thought it was Well Cool. I'd've bounced around to 'Brenda's Iron Sledge', but I was fine where I was ...
All in all, most enjoyable though rather more low-key than I expected after twenty years of very vague anticipation. Would go again, though, for definite.
