I hadn’t been to Portugal for a long nine years, the same years when someone just over forty turns into almost fifty. At the age of 49, Robert Peter Williams returns with an aura (self-deprecating, understand) of a veteran, of an “old man” that he has already seen a lot. It’s a masterstroke: by celebrating himself, with the good humor that Stoke-on-Trent (and possibly the pub his parents ran) gave him, Williams manages to transform a supposedly solemn 25th anniversary tour of solo career in a kind of tribute to Robbie Williams, the great, the youngest of Take That, the one who at 23 years old had his biggest hit (‘Angels’, the song that the public that sold out the Altice Arena sings on the way out) , the one who got into the biggest trouble (“sex, drugs, scandal!” he jokes at one point) and lived to tell the tale. It’s not a movie, it’s a concert.
And how well it went for you. Beginning 16 minutes after the scheduled time – a star from other times is expected –, the show begins by presenting Williams in a ‘friendly hooligan’ version, between the trained immaturity of Liam Gallagher and the paradoxically sensitive ‘bravado’ of Morrissey, all stuffed in a shredder in Las Vegas. Calling himself Robbie ‘fu**ing’ Williams, he throws himself into ‘Let Me Entertain You’ with adrenaline at maximum, opening a scenically careful ‘show’, with a lot of people on stage (8 musicians, female choir and dancers) and projections that initially seem excessive, but which are not limited to expanding what is seen on stage; truly dialogue with him.
On a first visit to the audience, after walking the ‘catwalk’ (there are no second stages, platforms or other gymnastics reasons), he complains of having been pinched on a nipple, revealing that at the concert in Hamburg, Germany, the boldness located a little further south. It was after the ‘na na ra na na’ from the classic rhythm and blues ‘Land of 1000 Dances’ and ‘Moonsoon’, a power ballad of 2002 that caused lightning, at a time when it is understood that Williams is also here to talk, in what is the last concert of the tour.
In other times, we would have called it a variety show: Williams tries out a few words in Portuguese, he even asks how to say ‘wanker’ – due to the abundance of syllables, certainly, the translation remains unspoken; on the very well received ‘Strong’ appended to the verse “ I’m still young” the comment “I’m really fu**ing old now” in a humorous real-time annotation; he makes fun of two female fans who are watching the concert in the worst seats in the room, calling them to join him; sums up his catalog to “two types of songs, number 1 ‘I’m amazing’, number 2 ‘I’m alone and nobody wants to save me’ before performing one of the second group, ‘Come Undone’, the one in which Robbie Williams plays Bryan Adams.
The mood intensifies. The Altice Arena seems to get smaller, with the artist fully in tune with the audience, not just a dot in the background for those unlucky enough to be further away. In spirit, the description of a journey through time begins: “1990, the Berlin Wall falls, Nelson Mandela is released, Luís Figo plays his first European game and five boys from Manchester change the musical landscape forever. And what is their name, you ask? N’Sync.” General laughter. Robbie is obviously talking about Take That, boy band which he entered at just 16 years old and where he would stay until 1995. On the screens we see the uncensored videoclip of the quintet’s first single, ‘Do What You Like’, with Williams again in ‘audio commentary’ mode (as in the extras of a DVD), making remarks like “this is me” and “it’s me again” every time he appears in close-up, and ending up ‘pausing’ in another even bigger shot: that of his ass. “This was my butt in 1990”, she concludes, to widespread delight. A bare ass illustrates a giant screen at the Altice Arena for almost a minute.
The story continues, now with memories of a Glastonbury festival, to which Williams attended “with a pocket full of coke”, preceding a rendition of Oasis’ ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, memory of 1995, the year that came out of Take That (the report is meticulous), with many hints (and directs) reserved for the former bandmates. From his episodic return to Take That, what was perhaps the most uncharacteristic moment of the night remains, ‘The Flood’, a 2010 song that time has not been kind to.
Approaching us at the end, playfulness gives way to therapy. In ‘Love My Life’, Williams declares that the man we see in Lisbon today is “the happiest” he has ever managed to be. He shares one of those ‘convictions’ that life, gracefully, knew how to contradict: “I always said I wasn’t going to get married and I wasn’t going to have children. Never. Well, I have been married 17 years and have four children.” He even goes so far as to say the names and ages of all of them. Fly confetti. Gradually, it opens the heart – and this is both touching and ‘material’ of the show, without the ‘operation’ seeming strange. “23 years ago I stopped drinking, it was stop or die, I decided to live”, he confesses in the introduction to ‘Eternity’, dedicated to a friend who helped him at the right time: Geri Halliwell, from the Spice Girls. O timing of storytelling it’s perfect, surgically lightening the atmosphere: “watch this video”, he comments when a ‘virtual’ string section appears on the screen, “it cost me a lot of money”.
After ‘Candy’ and ‘Feel’, the ending is stiff, with the return of the brass in ‘Kids’ and ‘Rock DJ’, on the eve of the encore. Not making himself wait too long now, Williams returns with a boxer’s robe covering his bare torso. Next to the bars, he talks with Filipa, a Leiria fan who can’t contain her excitement. “Don’t swoon, it’s not going to look pretty on the internet. Are you 24 years old? There’s a guy named Harry Styles, you know?” In ‘ela She’s the One’, Filipa is the one, “but in a fraternal way”.
We know that ‘Angels’ is coming – there’s no way we can miss it – but first Robbie Williams wants to tell us serious things and even cuts short the applause. With the focus on himself and the audience silent, he recalls the insecurity of his youth, the days when he felt “fat, ugly, dull” and the “demons” he faced. “The days that turned into months, the months that turned into years, the ten years that turned into twenty. Twenty years of depression.” The drugs he experimented with, “the cocaine, the ecstasy, the heroin – who was to say that Robbie ‘fu**ing’ Williams was into heroin? -, the alcohol”. 2006, the year he met his wife, actress Ayda Field, and finally began to like himself “through her eyes”. And then he sang, but also left almost 20,000 people to sing for him, ending – already after the bows of the whole group (and which he offered to the whole group) – with brief passages the chapel by ‘Let Me Entertain You’, ‘Strong’, ‘Come Undone’, ‘Feel’ and of course ‘Angels’. He leaves the stage covertly, looking at the audience for the last time. Robbie Williams no longer just sings when he’s winning; this is perhaps his greatest victory.