Review by Steve McGowan from Zub Records

Two of my favorite performers are back. I already talked about the first show by Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift for a fundraiser for their East Nashville community. This was the second show in the series, on the StageIt streaming platform. Robyn and Emma played on the couch in their house, as before. These shows are incredibly can-do and public-spirited, and also make-do as artists cobble together presenting shows from what they have on hand. So, the streaming connection was pretty poor as the world attends Zoom meetings with each other and kids rewatch Frozen 2 and gobble up bandwidth; there were a number of glitches, and cut outs. But we all soldier on in trying times and band together at virtual shows.

The couple has a vast stuffed menagerie they incorporate into these shows. Robyn and Emma showed off their stuffed lobster, Perry, and Robyn welcomed us to the “Swiftcock show.” This night, they were mostly playing requests, and the ten songs in this show were some of Robyn and Emma’s best, with some of Robyn’s more whimsical, surreal songs. They opened with a bouncy ‘Don’t Talk To Me About Gene Hackman.’ Robyn was playing his pearloid neck Nick Lucas model Gibson acoustic, and it was set up better for sound this time, not so drowned out by the vocals as in the first show. Reg mentioned “I wrote this song in 1997” when he got to the Andi McDowell reference in the lyric. It was a funny, fun start to the set.

To introduce ‘Antwoman,’ they showed Radcliff the stuffed ant who was “only missing one leg,” and launched into a fine version of this Jewels For Sophia song, Emma’s vocals really adding to the arrangement. Em apologised for the poor Wi-Fi, and with “Here’s a song in D,” they did a lovely version of ‘Madonna Of The Wasps,’ one of Reg’s strongest tunes. Perry, the aforementioned lobster, and Jermaine, the female stuffed Koala, were shown off, and we got shirt buying tips: “ Buy a nice loud shirt from a local business,” and “bespoke is the way.” Emma went to get tea and Robyn played ‘Trilobite’ from Mossy Liquor, an odd, alliterative song that I really love.

‘Listening To The Higsons’ in a stripped down arrangement was really groovy, and they closed it out with a good bit of Bowie’s ‘Golden Years’ (!) Next up was the sparkling ‘One Long Pair Of Eyes’ (a very Dylan influenced song) from Queen Elvis, Emma again adding a lovely backing vocal. The duo seemed to really be having fun and were definitely less nervous than the first show. Em and Reg had a long discussion of Reg’s hair - with Reg wishing he could have “David Bowie hair.” Emma wished Robyn would go back to his 1986 mullet hairdo. Robyn switched to a small mahogany wood Gibson acoustic to sing a tribute to the recently passed Bill Rieflin (who played in Robyn’s band The Venus 3 as well as King Crimson). He said Bill was “even darker than I am” and dedicated the song to friends who have died from cancer. He then did an astounding version of ‘Underground Sun’ from Ole! Tarantula, singing “I feel with you, even though I know you’re not with me.”

Continuing with the death and loss theme, Robyn played ‘The Speed Of Things from Moss Elixir:

You held my hand when I was crying
You were allergic to bee stings
I threw some earth onto your coffin
And thought about the speed of things
I kissed you by the clear, cold river
I felt like I was growing wings
But I grew horns and found another
Oh, a girl to share the speed of things

Emma returned and they did a powerful new song of hers, which I believe was called ‘No Happy Endings.’ She has a beautiful voice and this brand new song sounds like a great introduction to a new Emma Swift record. They ended up with about half of ‘A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations, Briggs,” scooping up Tubby, their one-eyed Scottish Fold cat, for a cameo. It was a wonderful time despite the Internet issues.

Our Robyn Podcast is at tinyurl.com/zubrobyn and a review of a prior live stream show at tinyurl.com/zubreglive