Indulgent and selfish performance in Sydney?

ROBBIE WILLIAMS is a great performer and probably the best showman and outright entertainer of his generation. His tours here in 2001 and 2003 were masterful displays of first arena, and then stadium pop shows: mixing spectacle with intimacy and irony with sincerity.

He is a good singer, a witty and frank lyricist and, thanks to songwriting collaborations with Guy Barlow and Stephen Duffy, he possesses easily the best mainstream pop catalogue of the past decade, from Angels to Advertising Space.

This does not, however, allow him to put on a show as indulgent and selfish as this one.

For starters, the sound was appalling. In my distant eyrie the music’s bottom end was boomingly stygian, while the high end may as well have been sent via a cheap loudhailer two suburbs away. (The middle range? It was probably still in the dressing room watching the swimming.)

The poor sonic quality certainly didn’t help, but these days we know that ensuring good sound outdoors for the audience is one of the last considerations on the tour checklist. If it’s there at all.My problem was this: while three years ago Williams seemed bored with performing but still sang with gusto, on this night he barely sang half the time, allowing the backing singers, the audience or the music to fill in the gaps.

The long chats between songs which, in the past were cheeky/cocky/funny interludes, this time descended into time-wasting distractions. He spent almost 15 minutes with his best mate Johnny Wilkes doing a kind of old-school RSL club cabaret shtick with hammy scripted banter, a poxy Me And My Shadow (which wouldn’t have passed muster on even the weakest Don Lane Show nights) and a messy run through one of his many excellent ballads, Strong.

Of course the stadium full of fans went nuts. When don’t they? It is still astonishing how little people expect from performers, or alternatively, how much people are willing to accept. Maybe it’s because they have already spent their $100-$150 and fought through the traffic and crowds and don’t want to believe that this money and effort has been wasted.

Maybe it’s the sheer thrill of being in the same space as the star, that intoxicating whiff of proximity. Maybe it is a need for approbation – wow, he said something nice about Sydney or Australia, that calls for a mighty cheer. Maybe it is as simple as just hearing your favourite songs played loudly.

But Robbie, just because you can get away with it, doesn’t mean you should.

B. Zuel / theage.com.au

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