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- Date
- November 20, 1998
- Venue
-
Mercury Lounge
New York, New York
- Billed As
- Robyn Hitchcock
- Gig Type
- Concert
- Guests
- Deni Bonet, Terry Edwards, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills
Deni Bonet joins on violin from 'Arms Of Love' to Let's Go Thundering' & on 'Listening To The Higsons', & Terry Edwards joined on saxophone from 'Rainy Day Women' to 'Listening To The Higsons'. In the encore, Mike Mills joined on 12 string guitar for 'Electrolite', while Michael helped out by holding up a sheet of lyrics for Robyn to sing.
I'll leave the setlist to someone who remembers (or recorded) it. Newer songs comprised a fair portion of the set. I was glad to hear "NASA Clapping" for the first time live -- if i remember correctly, He introduced it with, "the title is Michele's, not mine." Deni Bonet came up for a large handful of songs, including "Let's Go Thundering" and "Sinister But Happy". After a few more solo songs, Terry Edwards from the Higsons appeared and played ghastly mellow saxophone for a smaller handful of tunes including "America". The first encore was an allegedly impromptu rendition of R.E.M.'s "Electrolite" assisted by a reluctant Mike Mills on 12-string and a chipper Michael Stipe as music stand and director, pointing Robyn through the lyrics which were haphazardly handwritten on a folded up sheet of paper. There was a second encore with two songs, the latter of which was a violin and saxophone-assisted "Listening to the Higsons".
Overall, i think it was an adequate and solid gig. Two-thirds of R.E.M. provided amusing novelty (though the before-show gossip that R.E.M. would be the backing band turned out to be some wishful rumormongering), but the cover wasn't that great -- more entertaining than satisfying.