Chicago Tribune
November 12, 1999
A Hitchcock Retrospective
Robyn Lets His Music Do Most Of The Talking
by Greg Kot
Concerts have been known to break out between monologues by Robyn Hitchcock, whose skewed brilliance as a singer-songwriter is perhaps exceeded only by his penchant for synapse-frying patter. But this was not one of those nights.
On Wednesday at Metro, the British cult star was in Rock band mode for the first time in a long time, and the emphasis was on his guitar playing as much as his wit -- which is not to say that he completely ignored the verbally overstimulated side of his imagination. He interrupted several songs to wax surreal in a manner that recalled the mania of the pre-Hollywood Robin Williams.
These interludes -- which covered everything from the mating rituals of scorpions to visions of sharks invading San Antonio -- were essentially improvisations on the songs themselves: the protective cocoon of humor concealing emotions far darker and more complex than one might at first suspect.
One can only imagine a Hitchcock initiate's reaction to a song such as "My Wife And My Dead Wife", performed solo. What at first sounded like a twisted take on a menage-a-trois or a sick joke on infidelity ("I can't decide which one I love the most") became something quite a bit more by the time the singer was done -- an unsettling meditation on loss.
Similarly, Hitchcock's effortless Pop-craft often obscures his consummate musicianship.
With his longtime band The Egyptians, he developed a busy, almost Jazzlike vocabulary. Then in recent years came a period of stripped-down acoustic performances, with Hitchcock playing the psychedelic troubadour. At Metro, Hitchcock honored a third dimension -- the rock 'n' roller, a role he hadn't played since his late-'70s tenure with The Soft Boys.
Reunited on stage with his former Soft Boys sidekick, guitarist Kimberley Rew, and backed by an eager Folk Rock quartet, Departure Lounge, Hitchcock explored his roots in the three B's: Byrds, Beatles and Barrett (as in Pink Floyd founder Syd).
Rew paid homage to the sound pioneered by The Byrds' Roger McGuinn, first with the chiming chords of "Madonna of the Wasps" and then with the "Eight Miles High"-like barrage that introduced The Soft Boys' classic "Queen Of Eyes". Rew's presence pushed Hitchcock into some extended guitar excursions of his own, as "Birds in Perspex" and "Oceanside" crested gloriously, while "Sleeping With Your Devil Mask" rode a thunderous tom-drum groove.
The Rew-Hitchcock tandem offered a more muted celebration of six-string-interplay on a luminous "I Often Dream of Trains", their guitars flickering like distant stars until they faded from view, before kicking down the garage door for "Elizabeth Jade".
It had the feeling of a last blowout before winter; Hitchcock says he intends to take some time off from music in the coming year to write a book. But this career-spanning performance gave fans something to savor until his return.
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