notes:
--i *finally* met the heroic laurence and sally! sadly, they refused to allow themselves to be photographed. smart move, in retrospect. keeps their legendary status intact, somehow.
--opener cat power stank. ironically, the coolest part was the responsibility of our very own capuch'n (who, being a known feg, was genetically predetermined to despise her set --i passed by cynthia in the lobby during the set, and we merrily waved to each other, so glad were we to be out of earshot, for example-- while all others in the (packed) house
issued a standing "O"). after "rushing" through her prepared setlist, she still had a few minutes to kill, so took requests. jeme sneered "Freebird!" and, damned if she didn't play the first bit of it! not too shabby, neither. (fegs thinking somewhat alike dept.: before jeme hollered out for Freebird, i was trying to think of which stones song to request. i had just settled on Gimme Shelter when jeme beat me to the punch.)
--our excitement reached a fever pitch as we entered the seating bowl and noticed a piano sitting onstage, spritely. cynthia tried to calm us down, stoically informing us that cat power uses a piano in her "act". (that's actually a pretty good word for it!) but we would have none of it, performing all manner of silly handshakes, and predicting which songs would be performed on piano, and at which point in his set, and so on and so forth. THEN, after cat power finally left --and good fucking riddance-- some goons came up and wheeled the piano offstage!! we tried to convince them that robyn needed to use it as well, and could they at least *ask* him before removing it? but, goons being goons, our cries fell on deaf ears, and the piano was soon history. --far the best version of Guildford i've heard. i don't exaggerate when i say it brought tears to my eyes.
--believe it or not, i was listening to LOADED (my favorite velvets record) a few months ago, and thinking that i'd love to hear robyn cover New Age. really! funnily enough, there *is* a record for it in "the askin' tree", but no recordings *or* gigs listed for it. how did it get in there in the first place?
--something of a sombre set, all things considered. even the usually raucous Viva Sea-Tac and Beautiful Girl were relatively downtempo. not much in the line of stories, either. odd, though: he seemed in a smashingly good mood.
--his voice was in fine, if not spectacular, form today.
--some dipshit (who'd weaseled into a front-row seat after a cat power fan had vacated it) requested "Element Of Light". i felt like throttling him.
--you probably couldn't call it a top-tier robyn hitchcock show, principally because it clocked in at only 66 minutes (though he'd been scheduled for 75), because of the parsimonious banter, and because he didn't haul out the electric. however, the towering Guildford, the stunning New Age, and the exceptional Arms Of Love and Speed Of Things mark it as quite a memorable one. indeed, as a keeper.
Etews