Robyn Hitchcock - World Cafe, Philadelphia, PA, 3-26-2007

I've been chronologically making my way through Robyn Hitchcock's career, posting stray tracks albums, all-acoustic versions of studio albums, and live covers albums. So far, I've made it to about 2011. But those aren't the only kinds of albums I plan to post from him. I'm going to interrupt my usual progression and go back to something from 2007, because it's something I just discovered, and the friend who sent it to me (who goes by the nickname Lil Panda) has told me that it hasn't been publicly available anywhere. I've done some Internet searching, and I haven't seen any signs of it being traded.

So this is an extra special treat, because the sound on this is fantastic. It seems to have been professionally recorded and then broadcast on the World Cafe radio show. However, unlike a lot of World Cafe shows, which are relatively short and played alone in the studio, this is a full concert (an hour and forty minutes long) in front of a live audience. I don't know the exact location more precisely than Philadelphia, but I'm guessing Penn's Landing, since that's where many World Cafe concerts have been held.

Not only is this a soundboard, but it's such a pristine soundboard that it was a bit of a problem for me. What I mean is that while what happened on stage was recorded just great, there was so little crowd noise at the end of each song that it seemed strange. So I've done a lot of sound editing to boost the crowd noise. That still leaves the songs themselves pretty much sounding like they were recorded in ideal studio conditions.

In addition to making those changes, I also put all the between song banter on their own tracks, and then boosted the volume of them so they could be easily heard. And there's lots of such banter, because Hitchcock was talkative in this concert, as usual. His inventive commentary is just as entertaining as the music, in my opinion.

As for the music itself, I've posted a lot of acoustic Hitchcock music, because that's my favorite way to hear him, but this is a full band concert. However, it's a relatively small band, the Venus Three, which was a scaled down version of his band the Minus Five. The band consisted of Peter Buck from R.E.M. on lead guitar, Scott McCaughey from the Young Fresh Fellows on bass, and Bill Rieflin on drums. The first couple of songs were played solo acoustic, but then the rest of the band gradually joined in.

Often times, Hitchcock has played a lot of covers in concert, sometimes even doing all covers. But for this concert, it's pretty much all originals. I think the only cover is "Not Dark Yet" by Bob Dylan. He played songs from all eras of his career, even reaching back to do a couple of songs with his first band, the Soft Boys.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Uncorrected Personality Traits (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Queen Elvis (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Red Locust Frenzy (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Sixteen Years (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Sally Was a Legend (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Ole Tarantula (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 The Afterlight (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 Balloon Man (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Chinese Bones (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 Jewels for Sophia (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 The Underneath (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 The Authority Box (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 Brenda's Iron Sledge (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 City of Shame (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 Madonna of the Wasps (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 [A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations] Briggs (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 I Often Dream of Trains (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 Kingdom of Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
34 Not Dark Yet (Robyn Hitchcock)
35 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
36 Give It to the Soft Boys (Robyn Hitchcock)

The download has been split into two parts:

Part 1:

https://www.upload.ee/files/16068163/RobynH_2007_WrldCafePhiladelphiaPA__3-26-2007_Pt1_atse.zip.html

Part 2:

https://www.upload.ee/files/16068152/RobynH_2007_WrldCafePhiladelphiaPA__3-26-2007_Pt2_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo isn't from this exact concert, but it's close. It was taken at another concert in March 2007, with the same band, but at Athens, Georgia, instead. Peter Buck's face can be seen in the darkness behind Hitchcock, above the neck of Hitchcock's guitar.