Robyn Hitchcock's 60th anniversary gig

I just had to go to London to see this gig at the Village Underground in Shoreditch. Robyn Hitchcock was celebrating his 60th birthday by playing a special event with various friends, many of whom had been in incarnations of his bands including The Soft Boys, the Egyptians and his current line-up. He announced that he was going to play at least one track from each of his 18 albums, starting with a song from his new album 'Love from London', and then going backwards in time.

They started at 8pm with his current line-up and his most recent song, and then changed personnel with nearly every tune. By chance Helena now works in Stroud with Sheila, the wife of Morris Windsor, seen here playing his maraccas, but on half the songs he was the drummer. There was also a cello player, a trumpet, sax and piano player, two bass guitarists, two other lead guitarists, and two women singers.

To close the first half of the show, which had by then reached as far back as 1990, Robyn introduced two special guests to play Clean Steve, which he originally recorded on his album 'Eye'. If you were to follow the lyrics you would hear that Mark Ellen, seen here playing guitar on the left, and Nick Lowe, nearer to Robyn, were both name-checked. It was so good to hear Nick, one of my musical heroes, singing and playing along on this song, which for some reason Robyn wrote about me.

I have known Mark quite independently of Robyn, since the early 1980s, through really good mutual friends. He also is a hero to me for all the wonderful journalism he has given to us since the early days of Smash Hits, the Old Grey Whistle Test, and then creating and editing Q magazine and particularly The Word, which is much missed. He is hugely admired and liked, not least of all by Robyn, with whom he has been friends, since they went to school together.

I had met Robyn in 1973, when I stayed for a few days with his cousin David Thurston, and Robyn was living nearby. I even recorded six of his songs on my cassette recorder, sitting in front of a log fire, and had kept them for some years. This song seems to me to reflect the synchronicities that have occurred in Robyn's and my life.

......
'We had a party three years later
Clean Steve wore a robe
He brought a new Nick Lowe cassette
And played it in the road'
.....

That Nick Lowe song was 'Heart of the city', the B-side of the first single released by Stiff Records in August 1976, which is a still a cracking song. I had been given a copy by a girlfriend, Soz, who was working for Stiff when they started.

I had to use this picture out of the many I took throughout the evening, as it is the last chord of a great version of 'Clean Steve'. I just love the way Nick Lowe plays guitar, performs and sings, (and this is a wonderful arm whirl to close the show!), and how Mark and the woman singer (sorry, I don't know her name) are cracking up!

I was staying in London with another old friend of mine, Ian Macpherson, who had also joined me for the show, and after it ended we had to get back to his home in Kings Cross, so I wasn't able to go and meet Robyn, Mark, Morris and the other friends. So I'd like to thank Robyn here for the all his fun, wit and imagination which he offers to us all, and to wish him a very Happy Birthday!

I'm sure I will send him some of the other pictures as a memento of a special evening for us all. He did say that they were recording the show, so perhaps I can get a copy one day. Before I left Ian this morning, he'd already found a clip of one of the songs on Youtube, an accapella song from near the end of the show. It may give you a flavour of the atmosphere, if you are keen!

Richard Donkin outed me last year, after we'd had a blipmeet, and posted a link to Robyn's sole version of the song.

ps
Sadly I didn't get to meet Katherine Ellis' brother Tom, who was also there, being a huge fan of Robyn as well.

pps
Those aren't glasses that Robyn is holding in his hand, as Woodpeckers thought, but his harmonica harness!