Robyn Hitchcock at Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room (28 February ’23)

I headed to the Phil’s Music Room to see Robyn Hitchcock in action for my third time, but first for more than thirty years.

My ticket

This was my fourth ever show in the ‘new’ Music Room, firstly seeing The Chills in June 2016, when I met main man Martin Phillipps at the merch stand afterwards. I also saw Oh Susanna there in September 2019 and most recently Scots songstress Isobel Campbell back in February 2020.

My journey into town was enlivened as usual by listening to a podcast, this time the latest episode of the always-fascinating Beatles Books, with this one reminding me of the curious fact that the policeman who arrested PJ Proby when he split his trousers on stage in Northampton in February 1965 was DJ Bob Harris’s dad!

This was an unusual show for me these days, in that I had ‘gig mates’, meeting up with the two hosts of the fine Trust The Wizards podcast for a couple of swift drinks in the Phil pub.

I started with a pint of Yardsman BPA from Hercules Brewing as we discussed various matters football, podcasting and music, just having enough time for an old stalwart in the form of Fuller’s London Pride.

I had thought doors opened at 8pm, so the venue was already packed by the time we arrived a few minutes before. The Wizards headed to their ‘fancy’ premium seats, while I grabbed the nearest spare spec.

Weirdly enough, it turned out that I was right next to a Facebook friend, whom I had actually never met in person before, in the form of Will, singer/guitarist with Good Grief, who had previously written for the now-defunct Getintothis, like me.

Sat next to him was Paul Abbott, bassist with the same band, but someone I am much more familiar with via the podcast he does with his brother Garry called The Big Beatles Sort Out, a regular part of my weekly listening, and highly recommended to any fabs’ nuts.

I’ve only got to see Good Grief once, which came in May 2016 (as reviewed here), when they supported the mighty Shone Knife at the Arts Club Loft, which sadly seems to have closed its doors in February.

They brought out an album called Shake Your Faith in March 2022, which as it’s vinyl-only I don’t have a copy of, and then a cassette imaginatively entitled Tape nine months later. If anything ever appears on CD, I’ll be eager to snap one up!

It’s only a few days later that I have discovered that sat right behind Paul was the lovely Huw of Teatles Book fame, undoubtedly the most consistently enjoyable (and gorgeous to look at) Beatles-related fanzine I have ever read. I wrote one article for it last year, but we have never met in real life, so it’s a shame I didn’t get to say hello.

The support act

Jessica Lee Morgan is the daughter of former Apple artist Mary Hopkin and the legendary producer Tony Visconti (also later married to May Pang, fact fans).

Jessica Lee Morgan

Her first LP came out in 2010, and she has released four more since, as well as putting out and singing her mother’s music and performing with the David Bowie tribute act Holy Holy that also includes her dad.

I have plenty of Visconti productions in my collection – including Altered Images, Badfinger, Bowie, Morrissey, Sparks and T. Rex – while I have her mum’s Those Were The Days comp from 1995 (bought from Tower Records in Piccadilly for £9.99 in March 1997, also picking up The Wizard Of Oz – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack in the same transaction!).

She has supported Hitchcock on many occasions, also playing on the same bill as the likes of The Blow Monkeys, Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers (whose biggest hit came in 1966 with a cover of Got To Get You Into My Life) and The Bluetones’ Mark Morriss.

She was performing with her partner Christian Thomas on bass, as she sang, played guitar and rattled what seemed to be some kind of foot tambourine, but I couldn’t see exactly what was occurring from my vantage point.

I think that quite a few of the songs she played were from an upcoming, apparently imminent, LP, but first up was Here It All Comes Again, originally from 2010’s I Am Not, one of several songs she played that she co-wrote with her mother.

Christian Thomas

A song about “public property, private lives” featured some nice guitar work by Morgan, while a later Hopkin co-write from the impending album had some very slap bass by Thomas.

Closing cut was The Less Said The Better from 2020’s Forthright, also one composed by mother and daughter.

She has a nice voice, but the overall songs failed to really move me all that much.

I got a compliment for my Soft Boys t-shirt from a man in the row in the front in the short gap between acts, while I also had a brief chat with my neighbour Will, while the two Wizards also stopped by for a chin-wag with the Good Grief boys.

My history with the headliner

I first became aware of Robyn‘s previous band The Soft Boys some time in the very late 1980’s or very early 1990’s, no doubt getting some on tape from my best mate Kris at that time.

We saw Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians at the much-missed-by-me University Of London Union in January 1992, when the bargain price of £6 also brought us a support slot from the about-to-explode PJ Harvey, who at that point had only released the Dress single.

His set that night included the glorious My Wife And My Dead Wife from Fegmania! and a cover of the fabs’ Rain.

Two months later, Kris picked me up a copy of The Soft Boys’ Invisible Hits compilation from somewhere for just £3.70, also passing along albums by the likes of The Velvet Underground, New Order and 10,000 Maniacs at the same time.

Later that month, I bought The Soft Boys’ debut album A Can Of Bees from Reckless Records in Soho for £9 and Robyn’s Groovy Decoy from Rhythm Records in Camden for £12.10 on the same day. I also acquired albums by Culture, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Joe Meek & The Blue Men and Buffalo Tom in that trip up to town.

1992 was a very busy Hitchcock year for me, as I also got the CD of 1985’s Fegmania! via Kris for £9.99 in April, then getting I Often Dream Of Trains from a year earlier from Selectadisc in Soho three months later for just £4.99.

A Friday in October 1992 saw me returning home with 1986’s Element Of Light from Selectadisc for £6.49 and The Soft Boys’ Underwater Moonlight from Sister Ray for £10.99.

The following day, Kris and I went to Powerhaus in Islington to see Robyn live again, with much of the set being played by a version of The Soft Boys, including Kimberley Rew.

This time out the covers were The Byrds’ Eight Miles High and Mystery Train, originally done by Elvis Presley, with the other musicians being Tim Keegan (who’s also played with The Blue Aeroplanes) and Peter Buck.

I added to my Hitchcock collection in June 1993, getting his solo debut Black Snake Dîamond Röle from Minus Zero for £12, also snapping up albums by Matthew Sweet and Eleventh Dream Day.

I bought the then-new double Soft Boys comp from sister shop Stand Out! Records in September 1993 for £18, with my next Robyn addition being a tape of 1991’s Perspex Island and Respect from 1993 from my friend Simon in November 1995.

Some time at the turn of the millennium I bought 1990’s Eye, but I don’t have the details, unfortunately.

It took me another two decades to get anything else Hitchcock-ian, when I bought the joint Planet England ep with Andy Partridge via eBay for £4.76 in November 2019.

I got a CD copy of the 2006 Olé! Tarantula album from my friend Ant in October 2020, before padding out my collection with quite a few more records over the past year, once I knew I was attending this gig.

I paid £7.99 for 2014’s The Man Upstairs last August, also getting Spooked from 2004 online for £7.80 the next month.

October yielded the brand new Shufflemania! from Tiny Ghost Records, from where I also bought Love From London from 2013 and the self-titled 2017 album earlier this month.

In between, I also acquired Storefront Hitchcock for £5.99 from Sister Ray last October and Respect from Discogs for £4.32 in January.

Shufflemania! is apparently his 22nd studio album, and I have just checked to note that he has failed to trouble the UK charts with any of them, or indeed any of his singles, either as a solo artist or with The Soft Boys.

The closest he ever came to mainstream success was in the late 1980’s when he fell into the orbit of R.E.M. and had some hits on college radio in the US.

The main event

Robyn Hitchcock

Robyn strode out alone onto the stage, unsurprisingly in a black and white polka dot shirt, diving straight into The Shuffle Man from the latest album, which really showcased his very Ziggy­-era Bowie vocal style.

Next up was a rare treat of a Soft Boys number as he made use of a harmonica neck holder at the start of Only The Stones Remain, a non-album single from 1981.

He first went off on a verbal flight of fancy before playing No, I Don’t Remember Guildford (from 1999’s Jewels For Sophia), with Robyn suggesting the Wirral as a similar unexciting satellite region to Liverpool as Guildford is to London, perhaps harshly. My neighbour and I both thought of Warrington instead.

Another song I didn’t know came next, as Madonna Of The Wasps from 1989’s Queen Elvis featured a nice guitar effect, which he kept for the gorgeous Glass from Eye.

An entertaining monologue about buses and cheese preceded The Cheese Alarm, a song that was also new to me, but was one that the two Wizards had mentioned in the pub beforehand. Unless of course there are multiple cheese-related Hitchcock songs, which is certainly not impossible.

After the first of three songs from his solo debut (The Lizard), he headed to the Steinway baby grand for Flavour Of Night from I Often Dream Of Trains.

Robyn Hitchcock

The highlight of the evening for me then followed in the form of Black Snake Dîamond Röle’s The Man Who Invented Himself.

He requested what he described as a John Lennon-style vocal effect from the sound crew for Element Of Light’s Somewhere Apart, with the song actually slightly recalling Remember from the Plastic Ono Band album towards its close.

Possibly the most entertaining interlude was about communal bathing, astronauts being rolled in carpet, and grandmas. I couldn’t possibly explain what it was all about now, but it led into Element Of Light’s Ted, Woody And Junior.

Robyn returned to the guitar for the new album’s great The Inner Life Of Scorpio, with the set closing with another from that record, its final cut One Day (It’s Being Scheduled).

Before Hitchcock re-emerged, Jessica Lee Morgan came on stage, while Christian Thomas also came out to make a three-piece for the encore.

Hitchcock had a different, very busy shirt on, first playing Oceanside from Perspex Island. There were then lovely harmonies on Element Of Light’s Airscape.

The very final song was a return to The Soft Boys for Queen Of Eyes from 1980’s sophomore LP Underwater Moonlight, a fantastic way to sign off proceedings.

Jessica, Robyn and Christian

The set-list was therefore a good mix of tunes from across his career, surprisingly only three of which were from the current album. There were only two Soft Boys numbers, but seven came from the early to mid 80’s albums I know best of his solo output, with Element Of Light getting as much representation as Shufflemania!

He only played one track from 2017’s eponymous album, and nothing from the preceding four records. I knew all bar four of the eighteen songs he played, which was nice as there are eight of his albums I don’t think I’ve ever heard.

Regrettably, we didn’t get any cover versions at all on this occasion. He’d played two George Harrison-written fabs’ tunes three nights before in London, also playing four different Soft Boys songs ((I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp, Kingdom Of Love, I Wanna Destroy You and Tonight), while his Brighton gig a few days earlier had featured the deathless Brenda’s Iron Sledge.

My t-shirt

However, it was a truly wonderful evening, with Robyn’s rambling, surreal stories as much a part of the evening as his songs.

Tonight’s t-shirt

Of course, I wore the green Soft Boys tee I got for Christmas off My Beloved Wife. One of the Wizards was definitely sporting a band t-shirt, but I forgot to take a proper look at it, and sadly I failed to notice any others amongst the audience.

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Playlist

Here is much of the music from the night on Spotify: