What an appropriate week to be swaying among phone torch-toting fans yelling alongside Robbie Williams as if they had never felt anything so deeply as Angels, a song released the year Labour last stormed into government with a huge majority.
Williams encouraged this time travel. “I’m going to take you back to the Nineties,” the 50-year-old promised his sold-out BST Hyde Park audience of 65,000. We belted out not just his hits, but also Oasis’s Don’t Look Back in Anger as Williams put on a sparkly red jacket over his baggy white suit, boogied to Supergrass’s Alright when Gaz Coombes appeared and chanted Blur’s Parklife with Danny Dyer.
His Let Me Entertain You entrance was preceded by a video showing him reading “The Hyde Park Times” with the headline “Is Robbie Williams the world’s greatest entertainer?”. Beyoncé and Mick Jagger might contest that crown (and what of Taylor Swift, many would scream), but Williams is in contention. Aside from his multiple backing musicians — featuring a brass section — he even brought on a Coldstream Guards marching band replete with bearskins for Parklife. The Euros result also buoyed him, he admitted: “If England had lost, I would have been like, ‘Let me entertain you if I must.’”
• Robbie Williams: ‘My breakdown was like a car crash in slo-mo’
Part of his new charm is acknowledging his age — and that of his fans. “Wave your hands like it’s still the Nineties and you’ve got the energy!” he instructed before Millennium, having said “it was very mumsy over there” after going into the crowd during Strong, wherein a woman flashed her breasts at him. His voice held up, even if he left many high notes to us and threw out T-shirts instead of singing most of Candy.
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“I’m on coke tonight. Not really … ketamine,” Williams joked. The Williams experience is a mixture of comedy show, panto and therapy session: as his Netflix documentary showed last year, he is healing from addiction and depression. Before the show, the screens showed a mindmap of “things I have hidden so I fit in”, including “how sensitive I am” and “my pain” (as well as “my penis size”).
During Advertising Space, he paid tribute to artists who had faced substance abuse, with images of George Michael, Prince, Amy Winehouse and more. And he made sure the crowd knew it was them and his family who had saved him, his voice breaking as he said, “Thank you for helping me remain on the planet” before Angels, which he remixed with Three Lions, his dancers in England shirts. Saka wasn’t the only winner that night.
★★★★☆
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