Many thanks to Stephen for emailing this one to me. . .
The event at Newlyn was held at St Peter’s Church Newlyn on Saturday 3rd December from 1pm through to 3pm. Toyah was also in the audience. It was a small intimate concert given for the benefit of the Shallal Dance Theatre, and tickets were by way of voluntary donation. A real bargain considering we were seeing one of the greatest names in guitar music.
The performance was actually in the body of the church, and this gave the whole event a terrific ambience (an overused word these days!). He performed Soundscapes sitting beside a rig of super-cool samplers controlled (I’m guessing) by the input from his guitar and a small laptop computer. It was mesmerising stuff in such a calm and tranquil location. It was a bit disconcerting at times to witness him apparently input a chord pattern from his guitar, and then go for a wander around the church mingling with the assembled audience.
I suppose a couple of hundred people were at the concert at various stages. Some die hard fans (like myself) grabbed themselves a pew and sat transfixed by the waves of sound weaving around the body of the church. A few local parishioners came in from curiosity; before leaving after half an hour or so.
They seemed pleasantly surprised by the gentle sounds, almost
symphonic and hypnotic. As Robert was (unkindly) described as a ‘prog rock’
star from the 60’s and 70’s they were probably expecting something more
aggressively ear-bashing. I say ‘unkindly’ because it seems to assume his
greatest contribution to music has been achieved – while I still believe (and
hope) there’s a lot more to come.
During the last 15 minutes or so of his performance he was accompanied by some
of the dancers from the aforementioned Shallal Dance Theatre.
Well I’ve been a fan for many years, and, being a bit of a sad git, went along grasping a copy of ‘Space Groove’ in the hope of getting him to sign it. But, I didn’t think it seemed appropriate somehow to grab him by his expensive leather coat and say “Oi mate! – sign this will yer?”
By biggest “come-uppance” came when my next door neighbour (ex-hotelier) who
runs a superior B&B, said that they’d kept in touch with Robert and Toyah,
and in fact they had stayed with him the previous night. It was probably just as well I didn’t have
prior warning, as I would have been standing on the doorstep with my collection
of King Crimson vinyl under my arm and a fat crayon on stand-by!
Anyway, it was a terrific event, and Robert was supporting a very worthy local
cause and giving us a great deal of pleasure in the process.
