Isle of Wight Festival: the crowd goes wild for Robbie Williams all over again

 

 

 

It seems appropriate that Robbie Williams should have taken to the stage for his lone 2023 UK festival appearance, on Father’s Day. As he nears 50, the Take That alumnus has firmly entered his elder-statesman-of-pop phase, and for 90 barnstorming minutes, he took an ecstatic, enormous Isle of Wight crowd by the hand for a stroll through the misadventures of his 1990s heyday, when he might have been the most talked-about person in the country.

He wove a narrative throughout the set, a slick, refined, self-deprecating patter crafted into a quasi-stand up routine that is ready to go should Las Vegas ever come calling. “I’ve got long Covid – it’s not my f---ing age,” he quipped at one point following Let Me Entertain You, breathing heavily after an opening blitz that included Hey Wow Yeah Yeah and a cover of Land of 1000 Dances. Each track triggered a new detonation of nostalgia for the tens of thousands in Seaclose Park, a sentimental outpouring of love.

 

At times, the narrative of overcoming life’s hurdles threatened to become overbearing, a little like attending a communal self-help seminar. But nobody in attendance cared, and once they’d wiped away their tears following She’s the One, they unleashed an earth-rumbling rendition of Angels. This might be the new mature, family-man Robbie (however flamboyantly clad), but his charisma is undimmed, and it was clear from the emotion on his face that this period of his career means more to him than anything that has come before. Earlier on the same stage, Niall Horan laid out his credentials as one of the possible successors to Robbie’s throne. His career trajectory may be similar, but where Robbie was the poster boy for laddish danger, Horan is genial and humble. “It is one of the honours of my life to play this festival,” he remarked, and seemed genuine. With his new album The Show currently topping the UK Albums Chart, the new tracks rightly dominated the set, punctuated by swells of teenage screams from down front. It was a set of smoothed-off, glossy pop, all delivered with a winning smile.

 

Debbie Harry, on the other hand, is much too cool to smile. As she strode out onto the main stage, her eyes behind a retro sci-fi visor, it was as if she had beamed in from another planet. Effortless, ageless and poised, she oozes star quality, and within seconds she and and Blondie had the festival under her spell.

Their Heart of Glass came just two hours after the same song had brought the house down in the Big Top Tent, an audacious move from the festival’s most offbest and rapturous hidden-gem performers, Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp. A spin-off from their viral YouTube series Sunday Lunch, the husband-and-wife team played a set of songs connected to their respective storied careers, with Willcox revealing herself to be the most spry, energetic and natural front person on site all weekend. In their own strange way, Toyah and Robert best captured the spirit of Isle of Wight Festival: bright, poptastic fun with a dash of eccentricity.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/mus...ain/ar-AA1cK4nW

Edited June 19, 20232 yr by Sydney11

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Robbie Williams is coming to Abu Dhabi

 

Robbie Williams is set to perform in Abu Dhabi later this year. The Angels hitmaker will be hitting the stage at Etihad Arena on Wednesday October 18, and you’ll be able to buy tickets from this Friday (June 23) at noon. If you want to have No Regrets, you’ll have to move fast, as Williams previously broke a Guinness World Record by selling 1.6 million tickets in a single day during his Close Encounters Tour in 2006.

 

 

Ticket prices are yet to be confirmed, but you can book through livenation.me soon.

 

Tickets TBC (on sale Fri Jun 23). Wed Oct 18. Etihad Arena, Yas Island, livenation.me.

https://www.timeoutabudhabi.com/news/robbie...s-abu-dhabi-gig

Edited June 20, 20232 yr by Sydney11

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My bloody sky didnt record cos of love island crap !!

 

Not on catch up and not on YOUTUbe !! :(

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Gosh -best gig of the year?

 

Lucky people who were there B-)

 

Nice photo from Bergen tonight.

 

I guess it stayed light the whole gig

 

Credit: Team RWFanfest ❤️

Photo credit: Evelyn V Fernandez

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this tour is really going well until now. Still quite some shows to do.

Concert Review Robbie Williams: The Toastmaster

 

Robbie Williams is as shamelessly tacky as the gilded clothes and white crooner scarf he wears. A real rabbagast, or kjua boy, as old people in Bergen call it. Who knows exactly how to charm 20,000 people at once. His show is filled with over-the-top messages, genuine love, clear remorse and historical flashbacks. He remembers that it rained the last time he was in Bergen as well.

 

I wasn't there then, but I saw him ten years ago in Stavanger. That he would give TWO concerts in Norway ten years later I would not have thought. It may say something about the fact that light-hearted nostalgia is better and stronger entertainment than one might think. But also something about what an entertainer this buttery trickster from Stoke is. However, the 49-year-old acknowledges that he has grown old, that his audience is not getting any younger, and that he is afraid that people will notice that he is about to go bald.

 

But there's nothing down on Robbie Williams in 2023. Rather, everything is turned up to well over 100. The smile is bigger. The band is bigger. The choir ladies are dancing on the brink of something illegal in several U.S. states. Simple toastmaster moves like asking what certain words are in Norwegian ("Huh, is "sex" called "sex" also in Norwegian?" and "would never have taken so much drugs if I had known it was called drugs in Norwegian") are just as dry-witted as they should be. A long dialogue with a Thor in the baris in the front row becomes a friendship that lasts the entire concert.

 

That he chooses to cover Oasis' "Don't Look Back in Anger" as part of a long, very long, history of his time in Take That is pretty weird. That he freezes the image at a screening of Take That's first music video on his ass is as expected. And those who are here love it. They really love absolutely everything.

 

In that sense, there's no reason for Williams to make new music, let alone play new songs (the most recent in the set is from 2016, but that's "Love my Life" and not "Party Like a Russian"). He knows people want to hear what they've grown up with. It's also just what he offers. In a couple of places, it's rooted in the song troms. The first time, he blames long covid. The other times because he's grown old. It's quite possible that it's also part of the show. The hardest thing about Robbie Williams is picking apart what's rehearsed and what's pure improvisation. Because as a good entertainer, he's really equally good at both.

Whether it's singing "She's the One" to a Linn from Sotra, or letting in a Lars who is allowed to propose to his fiancé.

 

A sitting ending about how he's been a part of people's lives here for 31 years, and that it's his wife, kids and fans who keep him going even seems sincere and emotional. Also when he comes in after the obligatory closing "Angels" and pulls through his main choruses a capella, one more time.

"This is my band, this is my ass, and what you're going to enjoy tonight is f***ing amazing," he proclaims in the opening.

 

Well, amazing is taking some in. But as a traveling Vegas circus, it was truly impressive.

 

https://www.vg.no/rampelys/i/y6JV2a/konsert...s-toastmasteren

Published: 22/06/23 23:13 PM

Edited June 23, 20232 yr by Sydney11

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On my way to Pula at the moment. So excited ☺️ ☺️ ☺️.

 

I'll try to post some photos later on.

Have fun :-)

On my way to Pula at the moment. So excited ☺️ ☺️ ☺️.

 

I'll try to post some photos later on.

 

 

Thank you Frogec - Looks like a most beautiful venue :)

There was a new Lufthaus song. It sounded like a duet with Ellie Goulding. Not 100% sure.