Details

Date
April 24, 2004
Venue
Largo Los Angeles, California (West Hollywood)
Billed As
Robyn Hitchcock
Gig Type
Concert
Guests
Jon Brion

Notes

Early set

Reviews

The show was one of the most mellow RH/Largo gigs I
have seen. Robyn only played an electric guitar on 2
or 3 songs.

Highlights:
-Started '8 Miles High' and transformed it into
'Cheese Alarm' (acoustic guitar).
-Did 'Listening To The Higsons' (acoustic guitar)
which had 'Staying Alive' played in the middle of the
song. Jon Brion played some sort of smaller sized
acoustic guitar).
-"The Man Who Invented Himself" - in one word, WILD.
Jon sat behind the drum kit and pounded out a rhythm.
He got up from the kit, and the rhythm continued to
play. He created a 'live' drum loop on stage. Robyn
went to the piano, an placed a viking helmet (complete
with horns) on his head. He told Jon to play the
saxophone part, which he did - on electric guitar.
Robyn banged out a great rendition of TMWIH.
-"Tomorrow Never Knows" - After the first set, they
both took a break. Eventually, Jon got up on stage,
and sat behind the drum kit. Again he made another
loop. Then he went over to the piano and made another
loop on top of the drum loop. Then he went to the
electric guitar and used a slide to make what can be
best described as seagull noises. That was the clue
that it was TNK. After that loop was added, he
motioned for RH to join him. Robyn picked up the
electric guitar and started singing TNK. This was
pretty cool to see its construction, but it grew
tiresome after about 4 minutes. I think they played
another 5 or 6 minutes. Too Long.
-More covers "Main Thing", 2 syd barret songs, & Dear
Prudence.
-'Uncorrected Personality Traits' was a real treat to
hear. It was NOT done accapella. It was done in a
country-western vibe. With Robyn & Jon on acoustic
guitars.
-One new song he called "The Flannagan Song". It can
be found on the Largo website www.largo-la.com where
it is labled as "I'm Going Home".
-The last highlight would be Jon Brion. He is a witch
(I mean that in the best possible way). When he
played guitar, he had his eyes closed the entire time,
just listening to Robyn for his cues. Sometimes he
used an e-bow on the acoustic. He also used a vocoder
to accompany "Vegetation and Dimes".

It was nice to see Robyn do mostly Robyn songs. Sorry
for the rambling list. I do not have a setlist. I
know that someone does, because I saw them writing and
taking pictures of Robyn wearing the Viking helmet.

cheers....


-griffith