The Hollywood Reporter
July 13, 1992
Robyn Hitchcock
UCLA Wadsworth Theater Saturday, July 11
by Steve Chagollan
As much between songs as during, Robyn Hitchcock amused and enraptured with his fecund imagination and free-associative wit. Like some existential poet who sees the absurd in all things, Hitchcock rhapsodized about love, death, and euthanasia with a mixture of bemusement and pathos.
If we're all passengers on the sinking ship of life, Hitchcock is on the bow, champagne bottle in hand, rattling off witty asides while bemoaning our fate. One song ended with, "Yesterday I saw the devil in my bed/I could've strangled
him/I'm English though/So I made him coffee and toast instead".
For the unfamiliar (and judging by the sparsely attended house, there are many), Hitchcock combines Dylan's wry cynicism with Lennon's sensitivity -- two idols with whom Hitchcock shares a penchant for lyrical imagery over linear narrative. There's a bit of Lennon in his voice, too (that is, if you crossed it with The Psychedelic Furs' Richard Butler): at once emphatic and rhythmically deadpan.
But the comparisons undermine the uniqueness of Hitchcock's talent. He's not only an eloquent wordsmith but a highly gifted guitarist. Touring in support of their latest album on A&M, Perspex Island, Hitchcock And The Egyptians -- Andy Metcalf on bass and keyboards, Morris Windsor on persussion -- concentrated on acoustic instruments (even if Windsor used a drum machine for various effects). The result was a display of dazzling musicianship that evoked everything from Raga to Rock -- all strengthened by the group's three-part harmonies.
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