9th March 2012
Reviewed by Steve Boniface
Andy Robinson, front man and songwriter for well-knitted 4 piece Robinson, is an unassuming character who is very deeply involved in his songwriting. When he talks about it his passion and honesty is inspiring, moving through influences as diverse as Hemingway and Dylan via American novelist Bukowski.
This range of inspirations makes for a broad mixture of writing styles, one which makes it difficult to pigeonhole him into any genre. Depending on the track you could be listening to blues, rock, folk, pop or a blend off all these – making for an enjoyably varied live show. Robinson admits that the challenge of labelling his output has sometimes prevented certain media outlets from granting him coverage, as if it’s just too difficult to distil into one catch-all phrase.
Fortunately, this problem hasn’t prevented him from picking up a following more than able to appreciate his tracks in all their forms. The band only took to the stage for six songs for this Friday night show, but each was greeted with whoops and cheers from the crowd who’d turned out to see them – the small venue was packed and hung on every note.
The show opened with recent pop tinged single Without Love before moving onto blues folk for England’s Bleeding, the title track from Robinson’s first album. Nightmare turned the set in an almost Hispanic direction with a fantastic chord progression and Clarinet solo.
Next came brand new acoustic indie track Super Love. A set highlight, this was the first airing for the song in public and went down extremely well, and was followed by first album favourite Always Talk to Strangers, with its slower, folky styling.
Robinson saved the best for last though, with next single You’ll Never Be Her closing the set. This is a rough, angry, bitter gem of a song which had the crowd singing along and the band stomping the stage behind their lead man. An excellent climax to a strong set.
All told, Andy Robinson and his band are highly recommended. And with this new single and a new album due over the next couple of months, with any luck you’ll be hearing plenty about them.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXYr28l1MGA]
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