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Dec. 6th, 2006 01:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nigeltdeMy first stadium concert by Jessie aged 22.
I'm not the world's biggest Robbie Williams fan, don't know half the songs or lyrics. I'm like, "And through it AAAAALL, be mmmmmmm... PROTECTION, a lot of love and AFFECTION, whether it COMES to CALL," but because I have no memory of Take That I've always thought him pretty much a dude. He played tonight in Adelaide, and I went with sixty thousand other people, and I was quite moved. He's pretty much got it all, Robbie: he's a singer, standup comedian, slapstick comedian, dancer, stuntman, stripper, choirboy, rentboy, dork.
Everyone was a bit nutty from being out in the sun, Robbie included, and after he got everyone fired up with a few songs and a lot of, "PERTH'S SHIT! SYDNEY'S SHIT! FOOTBALL TEAMS! CRICKET! ADELAIDE ROCKS!" which is the perfect way to wind up an Adelaide crowd, the atmosphere just went to eleven. We all got really screamy and appreciative and Robbie started on these long comic rants with rude impressions of Elton John. He belted out each song and ran around the stage like a maniac and gave us every opportunity to cheer and clap and scream. By the end he seemed quite genuinely overwhelemed, and the giant screens showed him looking out at us with love and gratefulness and a bit of awe. He kept telling us how great we were, which was nice, and that this was the best show of the tour. He told us that we'd reminded him of why he does this and that when he wanted to retire after this especially long tour like he did after every tour, he'd think of us and get back to work. So I think that was quite special and I'm glad I went.
My favourite bit was probably first song of the encore, Let Me Entertain You, which went off and had everyone in the stands dancing.
As exhausting as it looks, next time I want to be standing in that first half of the oval. It was fascinating to watch the stadium fill up from my Godlike perch. It was like time-lapse photography in slow-forward because it was of a scale that you only ever see time-lapse stuff in (ever notice how you never see the middle-ground in time-lapse? Oh, a cell or a flower, a city or cloudscape, sure, but a room? the width of a city street? Those're the dimensions of *my* life, at least). The stage was a huge lightshow intricately planned with plenty of pyrotechnics.
One of the things that really struck me during the first half was how he got into the naughty/playful so-nonironic-it-becomes-ironic-and-then-goes-back sexuality of it, the performance aspect of it. He's not a stripper, really, he's a burlesque or cabaret performer. Just the scarf coming off is a crucial moment of the night, the first big scream during the show. Nipples are to be teased, not half-bared through a soulful and windblown unbuttoned shirt (that horrid fake babyish eroticism of boy bands or the simpering slut-eyes of so many women in pop). He's a really high-end hooker.
In conclusion: SIXTY THOUSAND PEOPLE ALL LOOKING IN ONE DIRECTION. Incidentally probably the most exhilarating thing was my first real Mexican Wave. That shit's tidal.
I'm not the world's biggest Robbie Williams fan, don't know half the songs or lyrics. I'm like, "And through it AAAAALL, be mmmmmmm... PROTECTION, a lot of love and AFFECTION, whether it COMES to CALL," but because I have no memory of Take That I've always thought him pretty much a dude. He played tonight in Adelaide, and I went with sixty thousand other people, and I was quite moved. He's pretty much got it all, Robbie: he's a singer, standup comedian, slapstick comedian, dancer, stuntman, stripper, choirboy, rentboy, dork.
Everyone was a bit nutty from being out in the sun, Robbie included, and after he got everyone fired up with a few songs and a lot of, "PERTH'S SHIT! SYDNEY'S SHIT! FOOTBALL TEAMS! CRICKET! ADELAIDE ROCKS!" which is the perfect way to wind up an Adelaide crowd, the atmosphere just went to eleven. We all got really screamy and appreciative and Robbie started on these long comic rants with rude impressions of Elton John. He belted out each song and ran around the stage like a maniac and gave us every opportunity to cheer and clap and scream. By the end he seemed quite genuinely overwhelemed, and the giant screens showed him looking out at us with love and gratefulness and a bit of awe. He kept telling us how great we were, which was nice, and that this was the best show of the tour. He told us that we'd reminded him of why he does this and that when he wanted to retire after this especially long tour like he did after every tour, he'd think of us and get back to work. So I think that was quite special and I'm glad I went.
My favourite bit was probably first song of the encore, Let Me Entertain You, which went off and had everyone in the stands dancing.
As exhausting as it looks, next time I want to be standing in that first half of the oval. It was fascinating to watch the stadium fill up from my Godlike perch. It was like time-lapse photography in slow-forward because it was of a scale that you only ever see time-lapse stuff in (ever notice how you never see the middle-ground in time-lapse? Oh, a cell or a flower, a city or cloudscape, sure, but a room? the width of a city street? Those're the dimensions of *my* life, at least). The stage was a huge lightshow intricately planned with plenty of pyrotechnics.
One of the things that really struck me during the first half was how he got into the naughty/playful so-nonironic-it-becomes-ironic-and-then-goes-back sexuality of it, the performance aspect of it. He's not a stripper, really, he's a burlesque or cabaret performer. Just the scarf coming off is a crucial moment of the night, the first big scream during the show. Nipples are to be teased, not half-bared through a soulful and windblown unbuttoned shirt (that horrid fake babyish eroticism of boy bands or the simpering slut-eyes of so many women in pop). He's a really high-end hooker.
In conclusion: SIXTY THOUSAND PEOPLE ALL LOOKING IN ONE DIRECTION. Incidentally probably the most exhilarating thing was my first real Mexican Wave. That shit's tidal.
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Date: 2006-12-05 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 06:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-05 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 06:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 04:55 am (UTC)Sounds like it was a blast :)
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Date: 2006-12-06 06:44 am (UTC)However, many people commented that it was just like the concert broadcast on TV a few weeks ago. So I say rent a DVD and scream along!