Music / singer-songwriter

Review: Robyn Hitchcock, The Louisiana

By Margaux Pittet  Thursday May 24, 2018

A tall man with polar white hair wearing a polka dot shirt with a hot cup of tea in one hand:  a “gentleman” with a tongue-in-cheek humour and with an apocalyptic yet utopian vision of the world. This is Robyn Hitchcock, of course. It’s in Nashville, where he lives now, that he recorded his self-titled album released last year. He worked with producer Brendan Benson (The Raconteurs) and various artists such as Grant-Lee Phillips and Gillian Welch.

It’s in the clammy, stuffy heat of the Louisiana that Hitchcock makes its way through the crowd to access the stage. He starts the set with The Abyss, a fragile ballade which instantly hypnotises the crowd. He then asks if anyone has a pen in the audience and after getting a positive answer from a helpful bloke, he declares him in charge of writing the set list down. It’s with an admirable composure and ease that Hitchcock chooses the songs that he fancies playing at the time, mixing old numbers with most recent experiments.

He entertains the crowd with hilarious interludes between songs, reminding the sound guy systematically to give his guitar a 12 strings effect and his voice a beautiful cathedral echo. He keeps makes a mockery of his voice and his guitar chops, which is pretty ironical given his authentic talent: “My voice has been resisting the harmful effects of age so far and I am cheaper to see than Paul McCartney”. Jokes aside, he doesn’t hide his admiration for the Fab Four and the music from the sixties. His psychedelic pop song Mad Shelley’s Letter Box, which he performs tonight, reminds of early Pink Floyd records with the Syd Barrett’s touch.

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I Pray When I’m Drunk, from Hitchcock’s latest album, differs from the rest of his repertoire with its East Nashville touch. His voice reaches new depths and is not as languid as on other tunes.  The peak of the show is his rendition of My Wife And My Dead Wife, a tragicomic tale of widowhood experiencing new love. His vocals are subtle, beautifully frail and passionate and his words craftily blend coherence and segmented fiction. There is a poetic sharpness to his surreal, funny and endearing lyrics.

Hitchcock’s performance in Bristol is like taking a ride in a magical yet frightening rollercoaster which requires the audience to go from laughter and lightness to darkness and inquietude. His set, although improvised, is well designed in the end. It’s without a surprise than Hitchcock walks out through the crowd under a tremendous ovation, a cold cup of tea in one hand.

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