Murray Attaway opened
Setlist incomplete/inaccurate

I was there! Murray Attaway of Guadalcanal Diary fame opened. I was impressed with the two songs I caught. I purposely tried to miss him do to the cheesy promo pics I saw of him on his first solo record (dressed in an English safari outfit).

Robyn and the Egyptians came out and play a relatively short set. An 1:20 including 2 breaks. So when they say goodnight the first time don't be too scared. They started off with a country-fied "Vibrating" which sounded quite neat and then proceeded with a bunch of Perspex Island and Respect tunes. Outside of these they played "If You Were A Priest", "Raymond Chandler Evening", "Only The Stones Remain", "Rainy Twilight Coast", "Queen Elvis" and a song I guess is called "Yes, I Love You" which he dedicated to Cynthia (of course!).

The highlights of the show were "Wafflehead", "Only The Stones Remain", and a Soft Boys-ish working of "Child of the Universe" with Robyn playing harmonica. He played guitar and harmonica on a couple of songs. He looked quite funny when played the harmonica - like he was suffocating!

How did I like the show? It felt a bit short. They only played about 4 or 5 after the 1st break. I didn't like the sound of their instruments. Morris plays his octapad drum machine most songs adding only cymbal splashes. It lent the music a very cold and emotionless air (like most drum machines do!). Andy played keyboard most of the time. Again the same problem. Furthermore though, his lines tended to make the songs sound a little too sweet. When they added accompaniment to the "Eye" songs, it ended up sounding like mid-70's soft rock. Only on the "Respect" tunes did it sound semi-OK and that's just because they were using the exact same sounds as on the album.

Last year's "acoustic" tour sounded much better. It was more acoustic! It was probably my least enjoyable RH&E show. It was fun, but definitely subpar due mainly to the choice of instruments. Oh yeah, Robyn played acoustic and it sounded fine. Just in case you were wondering.

2 different shirts. One is the album cover, another a cartoon one that is pretty cool. At the bottom it says "4 C L H" which of course is for Cynthia!. I talked to the t-shirt guy and asked about the fanclub etc. He didn't know much but said that they were going to setup a mailorder Robyn merchandise thing where you could get a bunch of the old t-shirts etc. He wrote my address down and said he'd send me some info. I told him about fegmaniax (the email listserv) but I don't think he really grasped the idea. He said that it sounded "crazy." :)

Sorry, no bootleg! Cya l8r!

Bryan P