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Take this evening's entertainment. The venue: the
Queen Elizabeth Hall, in that bastion of middle class
artsiness that is The South Bank Centre. The support
act: Rasputina - two women with cellos and a
man on drums dressed in Civil War regalia, singing
songs about the captain of the Bounty and 1861 while
looking like Bat For Lashes on (even better)
acid.
A music hall act for a new century in which
music halls no longer exist but the Carling Academies
of this world aren't quite right either. Next door,
you'll find Daniel Barenboim and Beethoven
sonatas. In the bar, it's difficult to tell which
audience members are here for which performance.
Which brings us to tonight's main man Robyn
Hitchcock, a quintessentially English performer who
owes the most debt to folk traditions rooted in this
fair isle and which long pre-date Chuck Berry
or even the lineage that brought us Dylan.
Might we have ended up here anyway, without the
musical revolution America exported to us? I rather
like to think we would.
Starting his career with 'psychedelic punk' band
The Soft Boys, since the early 80s Hitchcock
has been better known as a solo artist, with his
finest moment widely agreed to have been his third
solo album, 1984's I Often Dream Of Trains. Mostly
acoustic, largely a solo effort and full of whimsical,
clever, gently dark songs about typically English
preoccupations from disused tram lines, dead wives,
psychosis and religion, tonight's gig is a live
reinterpretation of that entire album. The 'Director's
Cut', he calls it, and don't bother - he got to the
obvious joke before you.
To put the evening into context, and perhaps to
save himself from accusations of self-absorption,
Hitchcock starts with a cover of More Than This, a
Roxy Music song contemporary to those he will
play tonight, and avoids the Don't Look Back formula
of simply recreating the album in order by ignoring
some tracks (I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl) and
substituting others (My Wife And My Dead Wife) in
their place.
The choices keep the evening interesting, keep you
guessing as to what will come next. As in the case
everywhere in Hitchcock's music, there's an
undercurrent to the surface comfort. Things aren't
quite as safe as you think.
The effect is close to perfection. Dressed in faded
jeans and a hippie shirt, floppy-fringed with an
acoustic guitar, Hitchcock is the original twisted
folk troubadour made good, surviving where John
Lennon and Syd Barrett didn't, staying true
to his roots where Dylan plugged in.
The beautiful moments are plentiful, but those
deserving a special mention are the three-part vocal
harmony of Uncorrected Personality Traits, with Terry
Edwards and Tim Keegan; the deliciously dark
faux-Americana country gospel of Ye Sleeping Knights
of Jesus, and the glorious decision to close the night
on Goodnight I Say, from 1985's Fegmania.
In between,
he treats us to his own songs and those of others -
The Incredible String Band's The Yellow Snake,
for one - snippets of poetry and spoken word,
inter-song banter and words of wisdom: 'that voice
inside your head that says he's your mate? Don't give
him your pin number'.
It's spaceman music, but spaceman music
well-grounded, matured and grown up and worthy of
taking its place in a room next door to Beethoven.
Perhaps the South Bank is the perfect venue for him
after all.
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