Subject: RE: Robb Johnson
From:
George Papavgeris
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 06:30 AM
Cracking evening once more at St Albans Windward.
Breezy opened the proceedings with "Swallowed wing", then Chris Flegg gave us a taste of "Pete's Socks" and "You gotta, friend" including a sizzling guitar break. Then Robb Da Man came on, opening with "Have you got a licence for that song?" - the best opening song I can think of, for any evening, swiftly followed by a Feltham Fairytale ("Mary said - Jesus Christ, I'm pregnant!"), leading to a first set of such quality and pace that at the break (50 mins later) the queue to look at Robb's CDs was 3-deep. "Supporting Chumbawamba at Whitehaven civic hall" was the favourite of the set for many of the Robb-virgins on the night, from what I heard, and the closing song of the set, "The day we all said stop the war", was lustily belted out by all present (yes, Cllr, I turned round and spotted you singing yourself hoarse).
After the break Breezy Les Sullivan followed the mood with his lovely "Natasha" and "Butterflies and Bows", and you could see the walls drinking the harmonies. I was given the traditional 2-seconds warning to do one, so as Cllr had previously said he liked it, I did "Empty Headed" and the Singing Ref with Moses gave us one of their newer hits - the harmony-inducing "Love can build a bridge", after which the Windward Residents (Breezy, Moses, El Greko and Singing Ref) all crowded at the front for "Working Man" & "Last Keeper".
Then it was over to Robb again for the rest of the evening. Starting with "Gentle Men" he followed with more songs from the eponymous album ("Soldier on", "When Harry took me to Ypres", "Tell me my enemy") and then branched out to "Breakfast at Kempnitz", "Toffs nil, Brenda one" (Ladies' Day at Ascot), oh, I don't remember them all, but the second set was if anything more compelling than the first. Once again, his song of apology to his baby son had me in uncontrollable tears - the bastard.
His first encore, very appropriately, was the touching "Father Christmas at Hounslow High Street", rounding off with the chorus of the first song of the Feltham Trilogy - "you deserve better".
And for his second encore - (only Marilyn Middleton has ever had one at St Albans before) - he called me up for one of my favourites: "Be reasonable, demand the impossible NOW".
When I left he was still hemmed in by people bying his CDs. Yes, you could say he done good.
Bloody good.
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sj
