Friday 23 May 2008, Astoria 2, 157 Charing Cross Road, LONDON WC2 0EN
Words by Tony Cuomo. Pictures by Alan Howard

It's Friday evening 23 May, on a comfortably mild evening in Central London.  Robin's in town – but will I get to see him????

My wife had ordered tickets weeks before for my brother and I: Chris had called me the previous evening to firm up where to meet, when, etc.  Let's just check the tickets….  Couldn't find them: what's more, the Mrs couldn't remember them arriving either. Oh no…

Fortunately, I'd kept the email from the on-line agency, confirming the booking with ref number.  I'd spoken to the agency earlier on the Friday: no probs, sir, there'll be dupes at the door.  But the doors didn't open till 7pm…  fingers crossed they'd done as they said.…

Phew!! They ARE there and collected!!  All was well with the world!  I turn around – there was John Waters with his lovely daughters Fiona and Hannah, John's friend Jacky (who I'd met at Brighton) followed a few minutes later by the mighty Alan Howard!!  Yep, we were all up for it!!

I was meeting about 8 friends at a hostelry just down the road, but where was Chris?  He bowled in at about 7.30, an hour late – he'd lost his wallet and he'd been trying to report it at the local police station, made lengthier as their computers had crashed… Hopefully not an omen of the evening to come…

We got to the Astoria I think one song into Aynsley Lister's set: I really enjoyed his stuff, esp the new tune 'Soul' he played (he was also excellent in Brighton a couple of weeks back).  Great reception from a very buoyant and vocal London crowd.  Shame he didn't seem able (allowed?) to do the encore we demanded.  Perfect warm-up job done, in my opinion.

But which Robin would turn up?  At Brighton I thought the guys looked tired, and the mix was a bit strange which I'd put that down to where I was in the venue: actually didn't think the room there felt right… this latter point is also borne by my previous times I'd seen Robin in the last 3 years.  But this was the Astoria: the guys had played here 3 times previously in recent times, all excellent shows, the crowd were right up for it – were the guys?  Two songs into it and we knew.  They were RIGHT up for it.  Put simply:

This was the best I had ever seen Robin and the boys play.  It was also the rockiest (is there such a word?), the tone of his guitar quite sublime all evening.

The sound early on was a bit muffled, Davey being a bit low in the mix (I was dead centre stage, about half-way back: being vertically challenged didn't get to see much, but then I listen to much of his shows with eyes closed, so no real harm done!!) but this was soon fixed.

There were so many highs in the show for me: ‘Shame The Devil’ (in this set-list for this tour, they should open with this), ‘For Earth Below’, ‘No Time’, ‘Too Rolling Stoned’, ‘Go My Way’, ‘Victims’, in fact most of the cuts played – in a review somewhere else I was critical of ‘Another Time, Another Place’ at the Brighton show, but tonight it was quite superb - but the stand out was a heavier than usual, rock version of ‘Bridge Of Sighs’, that I thought was just faultless, this performance one of the best I have ever seen played by anyone live over 35 years of concert going. Each note was perfectly placed for the one that followed, stepping stones if you will, and there were places where the usual restraint in Robin's playing were eased and he just went for it. Awesome.

As is the way with some of us fans, no matter how great a performance, we always think there could be something different to make that great performance the perfect one.  No surprise, then, that I think a couple of small changes would have achieved that.  ‘TRFY’ is not a good opener – has Robin's mike ever worked from the off on this? – and Davey really did seem to struggle on ‘Gonna Be More Suspicious’.  (A personal note: all bar 3 of the 16 vocal tracks played were originally made with Jimmy: I really do think more than a cursory acknowledgement of Davey's outstanding contribution to this music is justified, especially when so many played were from very early on in Robin's recording career.)  ‘No Time’ and ‘TRS’ should be played in full, the removal of the coda at the end of each diminishes the impact of these quite brilliant tunes: I can understand the inclusion of ‘Islands’, which is actually one of my least favourite tracks in Robin's catalogue, but at the point it comes it slows the tempo down too much.  No pleasing some people… J

Notwithstanding these comments, I absolutely loved this show: I am still buzzing now, some 3 days later as I write this review.  I got to speak briefly with Robin after the show and I was proud that, this time, I did at least sound like some partly-intelligent being rather than the sub-normal sounding cave dweller I did the time before!!  I managed to get a few words with Glenn as well – seemed a really nice down-to-earth guy – and he said something that I think we fans take all too for granted.  He said that they don't always hear on stage what we get out in the audience, so it was really great for them to play in a venue where they had a proper PA sound set-up and that this was the best and most enjoyable show for the guys on this tour.

A great, great show: can't wait for the next time the show comes to Old LondonTown or nearby. 

Return to homepage for more fan photos and reviews or click below for more robintrowerlive.co.uk reviews

Brighton No Time for farewells      Exeter Totally sold      Bilston Blistering Bilston
Glasgow Dedicated to Jimmy      London Let me hear you say YEAH!      Manchester Pride comes before a fall
Sheffield Balls of steel      Southampton From Portswood to poignancy
Stratford-Upon-Avon The play’s the thing      Birkenhead Fab Four in Birkenhead
Fleetwood Fulfillingness’ Fleetwood Finale      For more reviews visit Steve Shail’s site here!
 

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