It’s hard to think of anyone before or since that has commanded the exact niche of British culture that Robbie Williams occupies. One of the biggest selling and most decorated artists in UK history, with a record 13 Brit Awards and 75 million album sales under his belt, he’s also something of a proud throwback – as likely to pop out a vaudevillian routine or a splash of Sinatra as he is to go full pop star wattage.
Playing Arsenal’s 60,000-capacity Emirates Stadium last night for the first of two massive headline dates, the 51-year-old leant further into his unique persona than ever. As he told the crowd midway through the set whilst wearing a coat resembling a gigantic baby pink bath scrunchie: ”Embrace your cringe. My cringe is my crown.”
Rather than cringe, however, we’d call it charm – a charm that probably only Williams and his preternatural sense of cheeky chappy charisma could ever pull off, but therein lies the magic. In the first 20 minutes, he played approximately two songs of his own and 10 of other peoples’, flitting between snippets of Foo Fighters, Blur and Bon Jovi whilst delivering an opening, tone-setting speech. “Life is tough, the world’s gone mad, but we’ve come together to have a shared experience and leave the real world behind. You need to forget about being cool and just commit.” When trying to suspend the oncoming onslaught of cold, hard reality, it helped that Williams had just descended onto the stage upside down from a giant gold rocket, wearing an astronaut outfit.
Said glittering space vehicle was a nod to his recent single Rocket, the first track from Williams’ upcoming album Britpop. A second coming of his famed early attempts to be welcomed by the ‘90s indie elite, he then threw out Old Before I Die – a reminder of his Oas-ish solo beginnings – and then it was back to the hit-packed cabaret. Rock DJ saw him decked out in a giant floor-length red fur coat. Of all the people that his surely endless little black book contains, he chose to bring out reunited ‘90s boyband Five for a sing-along of their song Keep On Moving. Ahead of Strong, he held a conversation with an AI-generated version of his own Take That era self.
If the latter was probably one odd step too far, then the rest of it felt like a grand scale This Is Your Life, helmed by a figure the entire stadium had grown up with. He brought Lulu out for a rendition of Take That duet Relight My Fire, surrounded himself with gold dancers for the once-timely Millenium, and serenaded a fan for She’s The One. Across two hours, Williams spent approximately half the time chatting to the crowd, bringing up photos of his wife and kids, talking about a family member with dementia, and frequently referencing old moments across his storied career. On paper, it makes no sense as a stadium show; having earned, over 30 years, the sheer force of good will coming at him from the Emirates crowd, somehow it worked.
“Tonight is my love letter to entertainment,” he declared at the start of the set. A boyband star turned miscreant pop hero and now a bona fide national treasure, Williams’ show is proudly cut from a different cloth to the cool, chic modern pop spectacle but no one could answer in the negative when he asks: are you not entertained?
