“I’d like to say that was my arse,” reflects Williams, “but it isn’t, it’s Mark Owen’s,” and he uses the moment to reflect on the body image problems that have been part of his mental health struggles. We are shown an unreleased, early Take That promo video that involves a dancer eating jelly from the chest of Gary Barlow. “Tonight is a 32 year musical odyssey,” he explains, sat on a raised podium that is his base for the set’s moments of reflection and reminiscence, “there’s going to be the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, it will be very bleak for me and very emotional for you.” Tonight’s set, then, serves as a kind of biographical greatest hits delivered in loosely chronological order. Picture the finale of the biggest pop show you’ve been to, and a Robbie Williams set begins largely pitched at that level, with the high-octane pop/rock bombast of ‘Let Me Entertain You’, followed by a spirited, holiday camp rendition of Wilson Pickett’s ‘Land Of 1000 Dances’. Tonight, the opening night of his XXV tour, we are going to go on a journey. “Is it a safe space for me to share?” yells Robbie Williams, wearing a gold lamé vest and joggers, with a part-mullet, part-quiff that only emphasises his resemblance to a benevolent himbo Morrissey, “can I be vulnerable for you?” Tonight is going to be a little different.
It would make for an unhappy fame, but it did create a back catalogue that’s suffused with Williams’ genius for, in his words, “turning trauma into something showbizzy.” It worked, but Williams’ gamble for solo fame paid off at the exact worst moment for an addict like him, who was at that point only at the beginning of understanding what was leading him to dissolve complex feelings in lager, ecstasy and cocaine. With Guy Chambers, a jobbing songwriter who had led the unsuccessful 60s influenced pop band The Lemon Trees, he began his solo career mining key Britpop tropes, revealing his belief in that movement’s superiority to the pop he had produced with Take That. Williams arrived at the Britpop party at the exact moment that the bottles were being cleared away and the taxis ordered. A now mainstreamed football culture, a growth period for Big Alcohol, an imported and misappropriated postmodernism, a sharp rise in cocaine availability and a nationalistic, back-to-basic moments in guitar rock created a uniquely ugly cultural milieu. The lad culture of that decade had been partially engineered as a response to the perceived gender play and rising political awareness in a lot of 1980s culture. In 1996, he was sacked from the band owing to his increasingly frequent benders, and was birthed into the showbiz London of the late 90s. It was in that group that Williams began to experience the sharp feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, fear, body dysmorphia and depression that would persist throughout his entire life.
SOPHIE ELLIS BEXTOR GREATEST HITS HOW TO
Take That were an uneasy coalition built around the haughty child prodigy Gary Barlow, five young men - boys, really - with no idea how to communicate with one another. In that wink, Martin-Smith correctly identified that the boy had a certain gawky appeal that transcended traditional notions of talent and competence. Aged fifteen, he flunked his audition for the nascent Take That, but was hired after winking at manager Nigel Martin-Smith on his exit from the session. Robert Peter Williams was born in 1974 to an upwardly mobile working-class mother and a frequently absent light entertainer father.
Why, then, does he seem happier than ever, and what might his success and story tell us about the English masculinity he often represents?
Nearing fifty, he is Mr Saturday Night, Mr Christmas. Making peace with his own position in the market, he has just released an orchestrated album of his greatest hits, complete with tasteful nude sleeve. In 2022, though, he has not had a serious hit single for a decade. His chart statistics leave Elvis standing at the gates only The Beatles have had more Number One albums. He has sold over 75 million albums globally. Turning not very much into success – and, fairly or unfairly, the consensus has always been that he does not have very much – was the Robbie Williams gamble.ĭuring his late 90s and early 00s imperial phase, Williams was a definitive icon of English masculinity. You can write your own cheque as a Queen or Amy Winehouse tribute act, but there’s a complex skillset inherent to those acts. Why wouldn’t it? In the imitation entertainment industry, he is widely understood as having one of the lowest barriers to entry in the game. Robbie Williams live at the O2, photo by PAįor a specific type of man, the appeal of packing it all in and heading out on the open road as a Robbie Williams tribute act has always held a certain intractable appeal.
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