It isn't often that you see someone being creative in being totally and completely them self. One of the oys of seeing Robyn Hitchcock is seeing such a thing. Last night he played the Old Town in a trio format and primarily, everything except the encore, from I Often Dream of Trains, his 83 solo release.
It is an odd choice for one of those "complete album" concerts that have become popular over the past few years. Trains is a very insular work, one that was created in isolation without an audience ness. in mind. You listen to it like you are overhearing a conversation, but a conversation of that one guy who is talking to himself at the edge of the el car.
The songs translated splendidly to a trio and the wonderful acoustic confines of the Old Town. Hitchcock was stylish enough to have a polka dot shirt to match his polka dot guitar- One yahoo in the audience started the concert by yelling "Nice Shirt!" Why would you pay $35.00 to come to a show to heckle before you even heard any music?
And the music that followed was inspired and inspiring. What makes Hitchcock such an interesting songwriter to me is how he will take a subject that others wouldn't think of for a song, his favorite buildings or tarantulas, and write something that isn't tossed off, but personal and complex.
A good rule for any artistic enterprise is if it moves you, it will move someone else, and that was fully evident in his music.
Take all of that and add a full on barbershop rendition of "Uncorrected Personality Traits" and a gorgeous rendition of one of my faves, "I Used to Say I Love You"...one for the ages.
You can download the excellent Hitchcock concert embedded above here. It is from a radio show a couple of years ago and he is in fine solo acoustic/electric form. I would imagine the old Town show might show up soon because they allowed taping, though you had to ask, the pre-recorded rules at the beginning of the show still said not to.
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