Thursday, May 05, 2016

tom robinson…

I went along to St George’s last night to hear Tom Robinson.
The venue is usually full but, last night, as I sat upstairs in the gallery before the concert started, the place was barely one-third full. Not a very good omen, I thought…
Well, how wrong can you be!
With only a brief break, Robinson talked and sang for over two-and-a-hours… about his musical journey, but also about his fight for gay rights, his fight against fascism… together with some of the stories behind his songs, the people he met over the years and his appalling treatment by the Sunday People newspaper.
It proved to be an intimate, entertaining, funny and poignant evening… Robinson is an excellent communicator (and a very good musician!). I love the fact that, despite getting banned by the BBC for being “Glad to be Gay” in 1976, he’s subsequently presented programmes on all seven of the corporation’s national radio networks! He made a number of references to his age during the evening… which made me feel a little ancient (he’s a year younger than me!).
It was a great evening – the audience was completely captivated by Robinson from the start (at times, it was almost as if he was sitting in the corner of a bar talking to friends and playing his guitar).
He’s touring the show around the country over the course of May; this was the first evening of the tour… if you get a chance to see him, then I highly recommend that you do so.

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