{"id":190886,"date":"2025-10-10T16:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T16:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/190886\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T16:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T16:46:08","slug":"robbie-williams-review-tiny-camden-gig-offers-blinding-star-wattage-and-a-surprising-new-song-about-morrissey-robbie-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/190886\/","title":{"rendered":"Robbie Williams review \u2013 tiny Camden gig offers blinding star wattage \u2013 and a surprising new song about Morrissey | Robbie Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do you do if you\u2019re a superstar who has pulled well over a million people to a stadium tour? If you\u2019re as contrary as Robbie Williams<\/a>, you play a gig in a shoebox. This late-night show at the 600-capacity Dingwalls, the smallest venue of his career to date, is a rum event. It was originally a launch evening for a new album, Britpop, now postponed to February. Williams makes no bones about why. \u201cIt\u2019s because of Taylor Swift,\u201d he admits, in a week where her new album The Life of a Showgirl is outselling the rest of the UK Top 20 put together. \u201cI could pretend it\u2019s not, but it is. It\u2019s selfish. I want a 16th No 1 album.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bounding on stage just as the pubs are closing, a grinning Williams clearly relishes the intimate environment. \u201cI\u2019m not doing all that stadium bravado and pointing,\u201d he vows, launching into a full, stripped-down run-through of his 1997 debut album, Life Thru a Lens, with lengthy between-song reminisces of the circumstances of its making.<\/p>\n

These are characteristically candid. His heart firmly on his brawny, tattooed arm, Williams recalls quitting Take That to find himself \u00a3300,000 in debt: \u201cI took EMI\u2019s money to the Groucho Club and did loads of cocaine. Oh, and I was about to get dropped. Then this happened.\u201d Cue a heartfelt Angels, the ubiquitous national anthem of the 90s.<\/p>\n

This clear-eyed look back at a highly confused time is captivating because Williams, all nods, winks and twitches, is a ferociously skilled entertainer. Closeup, his star wattage is blinding. And this quirky, vibrant intensity doesn\u2019t drop as he segues into playing the imminent Britpop \u2013 on first hearing, a rocky, hefty affair \u2013 in full.<\/p>\n

Our host mock-worries that one track, Spies, may be too indebted to Oasis\u2019s Champagne Supernova: \u201cBut don\u2019t have a brass neck and sue me, Noel! Not after everything you\u2019ve nicked!\u201d He plays a jaunty number called Morrissey, co-written with Gary Barlow, about the \u201cisolated, deserted and friendless\u201d former Smiths singer. \u201cIt\u2019s weird as fuck, innit?\u201d he admits at the end, not incorrectly.<\/p>\n

Williams announces that he is to play more of these intimate shows \u2013 billed as Long 90s \u2013 in February. \u201cI knew this would be an incredibly special gig,\u201d he smiles, as he tips us out into the street at 1am. It\u2019s impossible to disagree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What do you do if you\u2019re a superstar who has pulled well over a million people to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-190886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}