Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews
June 20, 2000
Robyn Hitchcock & Grant Lee Phillips
West Hollywood, 20 June 2000
**½
by John Alroy
A frustrating exercise in artistic generosity and pseudo-authenticity, Hitchcock's mostly-acoustic, stripped-down tour isn't going to win him any new fans. Despite having a quarter-century of prolific songwriting under his belt, he chose to play hardly any of his best stuff. Instead, he (a) pushed weak material from his new solo album -- a mediocre love song ("I Feel Beautiful"), a flippant satire ("Gene Hackman"), par-for-the-course nonsense ("Antwoman", "Mexican God"); (b) left out his better new tunes ("Jewels For Sophia", "The Cheese Alarm", "No, I Don't Remember Guildford"); (c) ended the set with a long series of joke-y covers -- a dull "Across The Universe", and solid-but-tongue-in-cheek recreations of "Sound And Vision/Ashes To Ashes" (the excuse for some silly Bowie-style posturing), "Satellite Of Love", "All The Young Dudes", and even the Everlys' super-sweet "All I Have To Do Is Dream"; and (d) alternated tunes with singing-partner-du-jour Grant-Lee Phillips. Maybe Hitchcock is just wowed by Phillips' immense vocal range, over-the-top, extroverted stage patter, and substantial commercial and critical success. But the guy is a total drag; his tiresome stagehog antics contrast bizarrely with his dreary, melodramatic, unintelligibly enunciated Country Folk balladry. Hitchcock's stream-of-neo-Zen-nonsense was crystal clear by comparison. It's all a damn shame, because his vocal and instrumental performances were fine, the few old numbers were rousing ("Queen Elvis", "Birds In Perspex", "Trams Of Old London"), and sidekick pianist Jon Brion added some interest ("All The Young Dudes"). With no rhythm section, no opening act, and such a thin set, this was on the verge of being a $15 ripoff.
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