Robyn Hitchcock – Komedia, Brighton 16/02/2009

You don’t go to a Robyn Hitchcock show just for the music. In the thirty years or more he’s been on the scene he’s learnt a thing or two about stagecraft. Strutting on stage in his polka dot blouse (and I use the phrase blouse advisedly, it looks like he’s found it in a dressing up box), he feigns surprise when he turns round to find his guitar is exactly the same polka mix. A self proclaimed “Overweight dame with a telecaster”, he brings wry smiles to the audience with his reminiscences of the overgrown fuzz of foliage that was Brighton West Pier, and round bacon sandwiches offered by British Rail many moons ago. Only when a couple of drunken idiots in the audience start to mouth off and push people to things threaten to become anything less then civilised. In fact, it’s rather like spending a sunday afternoon in the presence of a genuine English eccentric, all be it an English eccentric with a lapsed passion for psychedelic drugs and a list of collaborators who include Gillian Welch, Nick Lowe, Grant Lee Phillips and R.E.M’s Peter Buck.

As if we needed it, Hitchcock provides a strong visual clue to his main references, with a tin ‘Yellow Submarine’ lunch box perched precariously on his coffee stand. The chiming British beat group sound mixing with a more psychedelic approach, throwing in a bit of 90’s baggy along the way in the shape of ‘Beautiful Queen’. Lyrically, his wry observational lyrics touch a note, and prove him to be one of the leaders in his field- the less overtly political Billy Bragg, Darren Hayman without the ukulele obsession, Chris T-T with a larger back catalogue and a greater desire to noodle along psychedelic avenues (which Hitchcock does perhaps a bit to often during tonight’s show). However, with a more than competent backing band propping up his flights of fancy and trip through the last thirty years of pop music, tonight showcases Hitchcock at his eccentric, engaging best.