The reason I really like this one is because it's one of his first solo acoustic concerts, coupled with the fact that the sound quality is excellent. Either this is a soundboard recording or it's an audience boot that sounds every bit as good as a soundboard.
Back around 1987, Hitchcock was mainly busy with his backing band, the Egyptians. He put out a truly solo acoustic album in 1984, "I Often Dream of Trains," but as far as I know, he didn't support it with solo acoustic concerts. His next solo acoustic album, "Eye," came out in 1990. After that, he started doing a lot more solo acoustic concerts. But such concerts were still very rare for him in 1987. The songs he played here were often quite different than the ones from 1990 and after.
This unreleased recording actually consists of both the early and late shows. This includes the entire early show (tracks 1 to 24), and only the songs in the late show that weren't played in the early show (tracks 25 to the end). One aspect of his live shows that I like are his lengthy strange dialogue between songs. For the late show, it happened that most of the songs included here didn't have banter before them, but some of the ones I didn't include had some long, interesting bits. So, in some cases, I stuck them in anyway, a little out of order.
Hitchcock was really bursting with creativity at this time. For instance, there's a long spoken section in the middle of "Raymond Chandler Evening" that was probably made up on the spot. He also recited two poems, one with guitar accompaniment and one without, that I don't think he did at any other time. He even made up a song about Donna Summer on the spot after someone shouted out her name. I had to double check with a Hitchcock song database (https://askingtree.com/) to confirm that was an improvised song, because it doesn't sound like one.
Nearly all the songs are originals, but he finished with a couple of covers, "False Knight on the Road," a traditional, and "Went to See the Gypsy," by Bob Dylan.
This album is an hour and 32 minutes long.
01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 A Globe of Frogs (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Autumn Is Your Last Chance (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 I Got the Hots (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Raymond Chandler Evening (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Trash (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Insect Mother (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Agony of Pleasure (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 The Man Who Invented Himself (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 Ted, Woody and Junior (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 The Angel Upstairs (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 I Got a Message for You (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 Sleeping with Your Devil Mask (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 Sandra's Having Her Brain Out (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 Glass (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 Recited Poem (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 I Often Dream of Trains (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 Flavour of Night (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 52 Stations (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 The President (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 Guitar and Vocal Improv (Robyn Hitchcock)
34 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
35 Donna Summer [Improvised Song] (Robyn Hitchcock)
36 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
37 False Knight on the Road (Robyn Hitchcock)
38 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
39 Went to See the Gypsy (Robyn Hitchcock)
https://www.imagenetz.de/jjkiR
I didn't find any good photos of Hitchcock in concert in 1987. But I found this one from the Metro, in Chicago, Illinois, on April 4, 1988.
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