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So there you are with about sixty other Fegmaniax sitting on
folding chairs in
Mark C.'s studio in Freehold (Central Jersey -- just around the corner
from where Springsteen went to high school), everybody's introducing
themselves and chatting and feeling psyched for the evening's show. And
Robyn Hitchcock comes in! He notes as he walks up to the stage how this
venue is a bit like an airplane cabin -- five seats on each side, please
keep the center aisle clear; take time to locate the exit nearest you, and
if you need to use the restroom, please use the appropriate one for your
class. If you think somebody else paid more for their ticket than you did
for yours, defer to them. "So everybody was here last time, right? ..." He takes off his coat and picks up his
guitar; wearing a hot pink shirt with embroidery and a green scarf that
gets tangled in the strap as he takes it off. "I don't wear glasses when
I'm performing, I just wanted to see you for a moment -- now I'll return to
my womblike state of myopia," and hangs his specs off the side of a lamp
next to the mic stand, and starts to play. "You'll never have the damned
thing out," he sings, and you sink into the beat of Surgery
(Gotta Let Ths Hen Out!, 1985†).
"This is a song about the emotional baggage you carry with you from
one relationship to another. I didn't figure that out for about 20 years
after I wrote it. Could you give me some delay on the vocals here, Mark,
this is sort of a rock & roll sea chanty." The Ghost
Ship (You & Oblivion, 1995). I wonder where my love has
been, tonight -- "Just imagine I'm Art Garfunkel:" Swirling
(Queen Elvis, 1989), which "I wrote when I was in the middle of
splitting up with someone, and also splitting up with with the second
person... it was a memorable experience." He explains how we
have to be angry, or we wouldn't be alive -- so "do you indulge
your quite justified rage at existence, or bite the bullet and inherit the
earth?"
From here he moves straight into The Devil's
Coachman (also from Queen Elvis). A bit of a digression
here about how his guitar strings are all worn out -- just yesterday they
were fresh and new, like tulips! "But thrash on tulips for a few hours,
they're not tulips anymore. You're just beatin' on that daffodil, baby! ...I
see we're just over Iceland now." Travel in the future, you learn, will be
much easier: just reduce yourself to a powder and FedEx yourself to your
destination to be rehydrated. "Wilbur! You're here! Welcome to Marin
County." All you've got to do is Ride... (Perspex Island, 1991) "Oxycontin
for mama, baby Jesus for the rest of us:" Madonna of the
Wasps (Queen Elvis again), going out to P. Buck.
"The practice known as vudu has been around for a long time. (Like
most things.) When you wish ill on somebody, a tiny grain inside you dies.
But you can't wish well on everybody -- can you? What do you think when
you look in the mirror? -- besides wishing for a face lift..." Wax Doll (yes,
Queen Elvis).
And now the harmonica is out! Drink a little coffee! ("We proudly brew
Starbucks™! ...How else can you brew Starbucks™?
shamefacedly?...") And a bit of tuning, tuning "as an agent provocateur,
pushing the string farther out of tune and then bringing it back so it
sounds better," leads into Queen Elvis (Eye, 1990) A bit of a digression
here asking whether the lamp by the mic stand (not the one he hung his
glasses on, a different one) is a Tiffany lamp... What distinguishes it
from a Tiffany lamp? Could it be made into a Tiffany lamp? Various
people from the audience are throwing in commentary, differing on a
variety of points, which is good -- "Consensus is very disturbing; if
everyone thinks along the same lines it usually means there's some kind
of fascism afoot." Maybe tonight you're dreaming... Arms of Love
(Respect, 1993). "If you're in Nashville, be sure to stop by the 5
Spot... especially if you like smoke and alcohol, like I do. (I'm from the
past, where it's not dangerous.)" More tuning -- "this guitar took a fall
today, coming into Amboy, South Amboy, it might be a problem..." -- and One Long Pair of
Eyes (Queen Elvis!) is the last of the back-catalogue tunes.
He closes out the set with two covers, Oh Yeah by
Roxy Music and She Belongs to Me by Tubby the Evangelist, and a
new song not yet released*, with the lyric "A window of bliss/ that
opened just once/ for the price of a kiss."
The encore happens in Mark's dining room next to the potluck supper,
and is 100% Basement Tapes tunes -- "Tiny Montgomery", "Lo and
Behold", "Quinn the Eskimo", and "Open the Door, Richard". You have some
baked beans and some pasta salad and a beer, and marvel at the glow of
happiness on everybody's faces.
 †(On the video tape of GLTHO -- It was not released on a record until You & Oblivion)
* (as far as I can tell -- not able to find anything about it on Google or in conversation with other fans.)
posted morning of March first, 2014: 6 responses
➳ More posts about Robyn Hitchcock -- gig notes
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