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The weight of SYD BARRETT comparisons was a heavy burden to shoulder for ROBYN HITCHCOCK, and it lasted for years. He’s gradually side-stepped that tag (if only to seemingly trade it for a Zimmerman one), but as tonight’s program unfolded and he delved deep into the blackness of his first truly solo record, I Often Dream Of Trains, if you looked (and listened) hard enough, the ghost of Roger Keith Barrett could be seen scurrying about the drapes at the back of the stage, or gleefully peering over from the balcony. As with most things Robyn’s associated with, the evening would be anything but straightforward. Billed as “performing songs from” the aforementioned record, he certainly didn’t just march out on stage exclaiming “Hello Boston!,” start the night with “Nocturne (prelude)”, trundle through the record, and close with “Nocturne (Demise).” That would be far too linear an approach for Robyn, and if anything I’ve taken from observing his live performances and records over the last two decades, it’s that he never operates in an A to B to C fashion.
The evening started with the recorded version of “Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl” played via a tiny, lo-fi cassette deck perched near the mic at the piano. Robyn strode out looking dapper with black top hot and suit coat, took his seat on the piano bench, and then played the remarkably melancholy “Nocturne (Prelude)”. The even sadder, heart-renderingly beautiful “Flavour Of Night” followed, with TERRY EDWARDS soprano sax notes (slightly restoring the tarnished image this instrument has unfairly obtained in the post- KENNY G era) keening over the simple arpeggio lines that Rob played on the piano. The majestic “Cathedral” was next, it’s stately nature slowly revealing the inner-workings of a complicated relationship. Amazing stuff; I can’t understand how this can’t be everyone’s favorite Robyn Hitchcock record. Maybe the odd-ball/dadaist a capella pieces turned people off; “Uncorrected Personality Traits” was a Dali-esque barbershop trio with theories that Freud never considered, the three men ( TIM KEEGAN on guitar and vocals was the other musician playing tonight) clustered together around the mic.
One of the added bonuses of seeing Robyn perform live is the between-song stream of consciousness monologues, often having nothing to do with the song just played, or up next. Sometimes these can unravel and find themselves trapped in a cul-de-sac, with no egress in sight, but tonight they all clicked. Prior to playing “This Could Be The Day,” the subject was the Mojave shrimp, and how their peculiar life cycle tied into the lyrical intent, while “My Favourite Buildings” were apparently built from bricks containing popcorn. He also gave this insight: “There isn’t much to see in life…there’s either a Starbucks or there isn’t. It’s rather binary.”
Some of the songs got a slight tweak; “Winter Love” had Robyn twisting his guitar volume knob to produce an e-bow effect, and some of the lyrics were also updated (cf. “Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus” which added terrorist and global warming threats to its litany of fates; strangely in “This Could Be The Day” the nubian slave became nubian dave). And though he didn’t play the entire record, he did play the one song I’ve been waiting to hear for a very long time, the utterly amazing and heartfelt “Heartful of Leaves,” boasting a gorgeous soaring electrical melody against a knotty acoustic pattern, some of Robyn’s finest writing and playing; at times his fret hand resembles an erratic spider, nimbly moving around in a way only arachnoid brains can fully understand. This is a song which really defines Autumn in a very real way; going into the subsequent “Autumn Is Your Last Chance” drives that point home so far you can smell the decaying leaves and see the waning light of day.
These two songs, coupled with the title track clearly illustrates just what a fantastic and singular songwriter Robyn really is. If you think (and rightly so, I might add) that RAY DAVIES is an exceptional English songwriter (ie, writing songs very evocative of Dear Ol’ Blighty which could never be replicated by anyone not spending a considerable amount of their upbringing and adult life there), then Robyn is clearly his equal. If you doubt my claim and have never heard this stupendous record, I cannot endorse it more highly.
As always, more photos can be seen at my site.
