playing 'I Often Dream Of Trains' plus other songs

A fine gig where Robyn performs most of his 'Often Dream Of Trains' album plus a 2nd set of covers . A gig organized by the much-missed The Word magazine which is why the wonderful editor Mark Ellen introduces both parts of the show.

Online review by Alex Cornetto
I Often Dream of Trains is not Robyn Hitchcock’s best album. Nor is it his most successful. It is, however, his most important LP; paving the way for superior acoustic albums like Eye and the high water mark of Moss Elixir, its bare-bones eccentricity and inscrutable introspection make it a bedroom record of the highest calibre. Yet, for all of the high-concept shows that he puts on – covering entire Beatles, Beefheart and Bowie records with a rotating cast of friends and colleagues – Trains is the record that the one-time Soft Boy has spent the last few years revisiting in concert (most recently at the Jeff Mangum-curated ATP Festival). Tonight at the Lexington, the album is being presented once again, followed by a set of cover versions, paying forensic tribute to the songs which inspired the album’s creation – or as Hitchcock puts it, “If I was a plant, these were the nutrients.”

Anyone expecting a faithful recreation of the album will be disappointed; tracks are excised and rearranged, while rarities are dusted off and slotted in. Yet, unlike Morrissey’s shameless revisions of his back catalogue, this director’s cut actually makes I Often Dream of Trains more approachable. Songs like ‘Trams of Old London’ and the country ramble of ‘Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus’ are bolstered by cello, keyboards and female backing singers, which make the album version sound demo-like; Hitchcock’s introduction to the latter, meanwhile – “None of us actually suffer from faith, but you can really suffer from other peoples’…” proves that his sense of humour hasn’t diminished a jot since Jonathan Demme’s live extravaganza Storefront Hitchcock.

However, when Hitchcock stays faithful, it’s almost scary. The two absurdist acapellas– the Pythonesque ‘Uncorrected Personality Traits’ and ‘Furry Green Atom Bowl’, the obvious answer to the never-asked question “What would Kevin Ayers sound like singin’ the blues?” – are given pitch-perfect recitals around a single microphone. Dispatched early in proceedings, ‘Flavour of Night’ marks another highlight – thanks in no small part to dapper multi-instrumentalist Terry Edwards’ enchanting soprano saxophone weaving its way through the song.

The covers set somehow manages to be both predictable and unexpected, with Robyn and friends tackling strange choices by obvious artists. Everyone knows the effect Syd Barrett had on Hitchcock’s songwriting, but did anyone think he would pay tribute with a pair from the rambling back end of Barrett? A beautiful reading of ‘The Crystal Ship’ doesn’t stop me asking – why do so many of my heroes love Jim fucking Morrison? Every cult musician owes something Lou Reed, but who has ever considered tackling ‘The Bed’? Even a joke about how “Berlin is Lou Reed’s equivalent of I Often Dream of Trains…bad luck, Lou!” can’t stop it from casting a peculiar pall over the evening; compared with Trains’ darkest sentiment (“It’s a crusty old world!”), lines about suicidal prostitutes seem pretty incongruous. One can only pity the poor fool who cheered at the end of the song.

Sorry about that, Robyn.

The evening was rounded off by a guest appearance from Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside – whose backpack and jacket combo suggested at least one eye on the exit sign – to add guest vocals to the night’s most haunting moments. Attempting a Beatles cover is generally a fool’s errand; attempting Abbey Road’s ‘Because’, complete with five-part harmony, is tantamount to a death wish. Yet somehow, the band turns in a flawless performance…and then brush it under the carpet with a -triumphant rendition of David Bowie’s ‘Quicksand’. Hardly the easiest five minutes of the Dame’s catalogue, it makes for a stunning end to proceedings, as the song’s dramatic swell calms to an almost campfire-like vocal finale. And after a quick bow, they vanish.

Having lain low on the recording side of things lately, shows like this are becoming a speciality for Hitchcock, yet he takes them in his stride; nearly as old as the genre itself, tonight justifies his unique position as the curator of rock and roll. It may have taken thirty years to come to this conclusion, but we need to remember this fact, and clutch it to our hearts: there’s only one Robyn Hitchcock.


Online review and pictures by 'the tale of bengwy'
The Word magazine has in recent times established a fine tradition of putting on intimate yet usually fully attended shows featuring talented and well seasoned performers in an excellently equipped room above The Lexington pub in Islington (or alternatively, as a one-off, aboard a pleasure steamer going up and down the Thames). Having finally realised that this venue is only stumbling distance from Kings Cross station, and thus viable as a weeknight evening out, I attended my first Word In Your Ear gig last night: Word editor Mark Ellen’s old mate Robyn Hitchcock revisiting his 1984 masterpiece I Often Dream Of Trains. As it happens this is one of my desert island albums, probably, so it seemed rude not to turn up.

For the main event Hitchcock had also assembled a six piece, though for the most part only a few of them are on stage at any one time. This is unexpected: one of the main reasons the Trains album stands out as so distinctive and out of time is its stripped down, echoey, almost skeletal nature, with most of the songs being carried by Hitchcock alone, with just his acoustic guitar, piano or multi-tracked vocals as accompaniment. But in contrast to when he’s tackling an album by somebody else (such as Captain Beefheart’s Clear Spot last year, which was delivered with remarkable verisimilitude), RH displays a refreshing willingness to try new approaches to his old material – as he says in one song introduction, the album’s changed, but not as much as he has.

So instead of a straight, respectfully faithful, runthrough, we get a bit of a re-mix. Some tracks are dropped (Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl, This Must Be The Day, Heartfull Of Leaves) while others are promoted from out-take or CD-only status (Winter Love, I Used To Say I Love You, Mother Church, My Favourite Buildings). Stalwart Hitchcock sideman Tim Keegan and Terry Edwards are on hand to handle acoustic guitar duties (Keegan) and sax, keyboard, trumpet and shaker (Edwards), along with cellist Jenny Adejayan and backing singers Jen Macro and Lucy Parnell. The performance doesn’t disappoint, and any changes made to arrangements generally enhance the songs: Cathedral is stunningly beautiful, with Hitchcock and Keegan picking out delicate harmonising patterns on their acoustics, the cello underscores the plaintive Flavour Of Night most effectively, and even my least favourite track on the album, the cod country and western Sleeping Knights Of Jesus becomes something of a delight with the addition of sweet backing vocals. The highlights are the two purely acapella oddities Uncorrected Personality Traits and Furry Green Atom Bowl, which are simultaneously hysterically funny and technically highly impressive. The intricate and idiosyncratic harmonies of these two must have taken some rehearsing. Only on the solo title track does Hitchcock stumble a bit, possibly because he’s played it so often (certainly as part of pretty much every show I’ve seen him do over the last 15 years) that he’s finally losing interest in it. Otherwise, this set was a triumph, and I’m properly happy to have finally witnessed these peculiarly fragile and interior songs live at last.

But that’s not all. After a short break Hitchcock comes out again to play some songs by artists who have been a particular influence on him (“If I’m the plant, these songs are the nutrients” he deadpans). If anything, these renditions are even more impressive than what went before – you’d expect RH to be able to busk his way adequately through a Syd Barrett tune, even if it is an interesting choice (Waving My Arms In The Air/I Never Lied To You), but it takes real talent to pull off Nick Drake’s fiddly picking on River Man, or re-cast The Doors’ The Crystal Ship convincingly for acoustic guitar. I’ve got no idea how RH manages to sing in tune and time at the same time as executing this delicate finger picking but he seems to have no trouble. The other songwriters represented include Bryan Ferry, The Incredible String Band’s Robin Williamson, Lou Reed (not a Velvet Underground song surprisingly, but the ultra-morbid The Bed, from Berlin), The Beatles (more startling multi-part harmonies on the dauntingly complicated Because, with Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside one of the singers this time) and David Bowie, whose Quicksand closed the show. No complaints at all, other than wishing they’d done Life On Mars, and you couldn’t have wished for a better sound mix or more respectful and appreciative audience (nobody in the room talking during the quiet bits? When does that ever happen?) Brilliant gig, and plenty of time for the last train home. I shall come here again.