The Boston Globe
November 18, 1996
Bragg Best Off Letting Music Do The Talking
by Jim Sullivan
It was an evening of Brit wit, of yak and chat, of lone guitars and naked vocals, of psychedelic surrealism and hard-left politics and Pop, of Robyn Hitchcock and Billy Bragg. Each singer-songwriter-guitarist plied his trade Saturday at Avalon -- a show that was bumped down from the Orpheum because of lagging ticket sales. (Hitchcock played to a crowd that was still filing in, Bragg to a very packed house of 1,500.)
Hitchcock's 70-minute set was a mixed bag of tricks -- not one of his strongest. He noted that one reason he was on first was because "I radiate negativity," and Bragg was much more of a motivator -- thus, a better closer. "I believe in absolutely nothing but my own appetites and my own feelings," said Hitchcock. Well, yes and no. His is personal stuff that connects on the astral plane.
Hitchcock -- a cryptic, ironic songwriter with a heart of gold -- looks mostly inward, even as he frequently takes flights of fancy. Sample from "I Am Not Me": "I wish I was high/I wish I was dead/She only wishes she could grow a new head".
Yet this was less of a strange parade than usual, and it was tepid in spots, the solo (mostly) acoustic format lending an aura of coffeehouse seriousness. (Violinist Deni Bonet chipped in for several songs and added a welcome lilt.) There's less whimsy and dementia in the 43-year-old Hitchcock these days, and he omitted some of his classic, skewed songs. The new "Where Do You Go When You Die?" was a Blues-y bore. "1974" fared better with its evocations of Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett (a prime Hitchcock source), Monty Python, and David Bowie. His set had sparkling moments, but never reached bonfire status.
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