Robyn Hitchcock 4/13/19 The Kate Old Saybrook

First time at this beautiful old theater in the heart of Old Saybrook. Trippy Brit-folk legend Hichcock played two full sets of music to a near capacity crowd. The first set featured Robyn on acoustic and some harmonica. From the solo material; I Often Dream of Trains, Mad Shelley's Letterbox, Virginia Woolf, to material from the Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians era; Balloon Man, Madonna of the Wasps, Queen Elvis, and I'm sure some seminal Soft Boys material thrown in for good measure. Robyn is a true performer, like a cross between Robin Williams and Salvador Dali, his often outrageous inter-song banter is worth seeing. He conjured up some omniscient sound woman named Patricia who was tasked with making him sound "like a sober David Crosby", or "double the reverb minus the delay". In the second set, he launched into this Alice in Wonderland-type tale of his cat Tubby, who had one- eye and flew a single engine bi-plane round the world at the request of Bryan Ferry's butler, who needed to keep the foppish bard in constant supply of hair products. You can't make this stuff up, well, if you are Robyn Hitchcock you can. It seems that several decades of psychedelics have bestowed him with a continual flow of acid flashbacks that color his live performance. The second set saw him bring Emma Swift on stage for some beautiful harmony vocals. Many songs seemed to lean on the imagery of a hotel (glass hotel, flesh hotel), potent in this modern world of anti-immigrant and who gets to stay where mentality. Robyn then switched to piano, which sounded great in the small hall. Encored with nods to his mentors, a fantastic piano rendition of Pink Floyd's Astronomy Domine and John Lennon's God.