Faithful Cog

On Saturday night, I saw Robyn Hitchcock in concert for like the billionth time actually it was only my eleventh time. As usual the show was at the Crocodile Cafe and my concertmate was Merychippus. "It's a machine and you're its faithful cog" Yeah, that's me!

After a nice dinner in Ballard we arrived super early (more than two hours till Robyn hit the stage!) and after briefly attempting to go elsewhere we settle into a table and had some drinks and mostly talked about politics. I was already a bit drunk and remember reiterating that "While I am becoming more conservative in my old age, I am by no means a conservative." It was fun but I recall it getting even more wonky after that.

Luckily were saved from performing some sort of dialectic analysis of social security when my old quiz bowl friend and recent pub trivia team mate Ryan K. and his friend John showed up. Ryan is one of the best and most sincere people I know. He's always honest and straightforward with people and won't shine people on. Ryan and I had discussed meeting up at the show months ago but had talked about it since so this was a real nice surprise. Ryan's friend John turned out to be a real cool guy and I talked with him a lot about music and impressed him with my knowledge of NC State basketball. Later Ryan's friend Ellen joined us and while I didn't get much of a chance to talk to her she was a delight.


Ryan K., John and Ellen.

The actual show was great. Robyn was in top form; complete with a polka dot shirt, with lots of blinking, plentiful flipping the hair out of his face, and inspired monologues. While I prefer to see Robyn with a band and rockin', the solo acoustic format allows for a nice rambling experience. You never know what Robyn might play and he played stuff from all over his career from The Soft Boys "Only The Stones Remain" to The Full Moon of My Soul" from his latest album. The highlight for me was definitely "A Skull, a Suitcase, and a Long Red Bottle Of Wine" which contains one of my favorite lines "when your dreams come true they pretty soon decay" such beautiful cynicism. The lowlight was definitely "Viva Sea-Tac", Robyn's tribute to Seattle. Its a cute song but totally gimmicky. I wouldn't mind it if Robyn didn't always play it at every show in Seattle. Everything else was pretty fab though.


The only picture of Robyn I managed to take where he is not just a red blob of light.

The show was sold out so it was awfully warm in there. We were standing near the back and there was a light that I kept seeing out of the corner of my eye so I tried just close my eyes and focus on the music, but since I was rather drunk I kept losing my balance. Lesson: drunk people should keep their eyes open!

Anyway, thank you Robyn, Ryan K., John, Ellen, and especially Mery for great night out!