Robbie Williams review in full: UK superstar wows bumper VAILO Adelaide 500 crowd
Robbie Williams VAILO Adelaide 500 after-race concert wasn’t just a top gig, it was also the group therapy session we all needed.
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Opening up about his long battle with mental health, superstar Robbie Williams is thanking his Aussie fanbase for helping him become a better man.
In the lead up to singing his hit Angels at Sunday’s VAILO Adelaide 500 after-race concert, the superstar and his adoring audience shared a moment.
Sporting a long mullet Williams was at one with the crowd of about 50,000 in Victoria Park.
He spoke about how he had been free from drug and alcohol addiction for more than two decades.
“It was either carry on drinking and die or stop drinking and live,” he told the crowd.
“So one day became two days, became a week, became a month, became a year and then a decade and then two decades. That was 24 years ago and I haven’t had a drink since.”
However, Williams also revealed how sobriety had forced him to face his demons.
“After a while I used to think to myself ‘I’ve got all this success and all these nice things happening to me and yet I’m a f … ing crippled person inside, my brain, my functioning, everything is f … d’,” Williams told his fans, going on to day: “Some days I used to think ‘what’s the point of staying on the planet and I thought about taking myself out’.”
Williams said he had also contemplated suicide, before revealing the two things that had saved him.
“I met my wife,” he said of the first, his wife being actor Ayda Field, to whom he’s been married for 13 years.
The second thing was knowing he had the support of his Aussie fans.
When struggling Williams would say to himself, “All of this stuff I think about myself can’t be true because I've got these f … ing incredible audiences in Australia that come to see me”.
“I want you to know that I used to lean on you guys an awful lot to get me through from day to day,” he said, adding: “On behalf of me and my family I want to say thank you very much.”
Asking the audience to put their phone torches on to “light this field up”, Williams then started singing the chorus to Angels before urging his fans to take over in what was the musical equivalent of a group hug.
It was a moment of healing during a concert in which Williams also shared his experiences with dyspraxia – a neurological disorder that affects one’s ability to plan and process motor tasks – and body dysmorphia, and thereby encouraged thousands of conversations between his fans and their families and friends.
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THE FULL REVIEW: RICHARD EVANS
Of the near 110 minutes he was on stage last night, it’s a fair guess that Robbie Williams sang for no more than an hour of it, tops.
He hasn’t touched alcohol for 24 years he told us and banged on and on about his expulsion from Take That, a wound that festers still evidently.
He talked too about dyspraxia, dysmorphia, self-hate and being fat and suicidal thoughts but it was genuinely and passionately done.
“It was either carry on drinking and die or stop drinking and live,” he told the crowd.
“So one day became two days, became a week, became a month, became a year and then a decade and then two decades. That was 24 years ago and I haven’t had a drink since.”
Such unconventional behaviour though did not remotely detract from a heartfelt performance that will have sent his thousands of fans home singing and smiling deep into this week and probably next. Yes, the former boy band member from Stoke-on-Trent on the edge of industrial northern England was that good.
The near 50-year-old (February 2024) was hyper from the off as with a theatrical flourish to match the thousands of bats flying over the Parklands from the nearby Botanic Gardens, he arrived on stage in a flash of colour and within just seconds had taken Adelaide by storm. Veni vidi vici - I came, I saw, I conquered - he might have sung, it was what were we all thinking
There were perhaps 50,000 people present as Robbie appeared and the eruption was as loud as the Supercars had been earlier with the main man covering nearly as much distance as he roamed, itchy pants like, endlessly around the giant stage.
Let me entertain you was, expectedly, belted out early on but this was more than a greatest hits tour, song number three (Land of 1000 dances) the most curious choice for a man with no end of heavyweight hits but was pitched to perfection.
Not many people would be able to sing this song from its name only but nearly everyone would recognise it, a 1960s American coming of age staple, “Na na na na na’ the chant and one for his vast entourage of dancers and backing singers to show their stuff. It wasn’t in the Blues Brothers film but encapsulates that mood perfectly.
“Melbourne has been the best at singing this song so far,” Robbie agitated. “Adelaide, can you beat it?”
It set the tone beautifully and any build-up was cast aside, bravely his best song, Come Undone, was the just fifth tune of the night and impeccably performed more than sung, the crowd screaming out the chorus on cue as Robbie held his mic out and let the audience do the work. Already everyone was happy.
A good two hours before Robbie was due on stage at 8.30pm, the concert area at King Rodney Park, near Victoria Park, had been packed, the touching distance spaces in front of the stage snapped up while the Supercars drivers were still at breakfast.
This month has been a tour de force for, Paul McCartney aside maybe, Australia’s favourite Pom albeit one who is increasingly, and weirdly, looking ever more like the singer Morrissey. A Morrissey with humour that is.
More than wearing him out though, six shows in little over a week have whipped Robbie and his crowds, into a kind of intimate whirlwind where listening to the music is almost secondary to listening to what he says and does in-between songs.
There is a fall guy in every show and this time it was a genial looking man in his 50s who had queued long to get a front row slot against the barriers.
Maybe he’d spent too long in the sun yesterday.
“Is there a problem with the ozone layer in Adelaide?” quipped Robbie, a good gag and meant without malice.
The poor chap (Andrew who Robbie initially misheard as Adrian and referred to him as Andrew/Adrain all night) sadly didn’t know the words to ‘Strong’ and was accordingly toyed with, sometimes tortuously, for the next hour. He (Andrew/Adrian) will regale this pals about this night for years.
And so it went on. Forget last year’s AFL Grand Final barnstorming success, Robbie Williams 2023 is the consummate all ages, all demographics show stopper.
Like all divas - which he is - Robbie is a paradox, his recent Netflix doco showing him as a man still searching for himself, craving confirmation of his worth more than his brilliance, self-flagellation a necessity, normality a pipedream.
With a wife of 18 year said four kids he’s the happiest he’s ever been he said. We can but hope it’s true.
And when he sings, oh boy he’s good. He may not have the voice of an angel but he comes with the stage presence of Liberace, Liam Gallagher and James Brown rolled into one and this is what Adelaide wanted and got despite the oddest of set lists.
Robbie has a serious back catalogue but covers have been everywhere this tour, a version of the Oasis classic ‘Don’t look back in anger’ was a particular highlight and in trying to please everyone, weirdly he does.
He is not about to pen any new epics - and yes he does write his own songs he tells the doubters in his documentary - and so he settles for putting on a show.
The tour opener ‘Hey Wow Yeah Yeah’ is a song of little listening merit but its repetitive clapping beat gets every show going superbly.
The first encore was perhaps the highlight, a stirring rendition of John Farnham’s ‘You’re the voice’ that saw Robbie plug a long golden mullet onto the back of his head. “Can I become a national,’ he asked before shouting out the obligatory ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie’ chant (there had been an earlier ‘if you’re a bogan and you know it clap your hands ditty too).
Given how long he talks to the crowd, Robbie doesn’t sing for that long -18 songs including encores the average this tour - but it is a winning formula of rehearsed and impromptu banter.
It makes him, at times, on the verge of becoming a parody and a career in pantomime awaits should he ever fall on hard times for a superstar who veers endlessly between action and crowd interaction.
Yet patently he embraces and thrives on being the centre of attention, a feat draining beyond conception.
How can anyone be normal with a life like this?
Before Williams came on stage, Lufthaus and Sneaky Sound System acquitted themselves well, as did Gaz Coombes, a knockabout songsmith of Take That vintage, his showstopper Alright the song you know instantly without quite knowing who sang it.
And before that, a star of a different kind, behind the wheel, had shone on the racetrack.
New Zealander Matthew Payne, 21, who made his Supercars debut just last year, clinched his first victory in an upset over Queenslander Broc Feeney. When the race was over and the celebratory burnouts started, scores of fans took it as an invitation to flood the track. It was a fitting end to a weekend that saw more than 260,000 people turn out – at least 2000 more than last year’s event.
It was also an economic boom, expected to inject at least $50 million into the South Australian economy according to Premier Peter Malinauskas.
“We’re particularly proud of the interstate visitation – no doubt Robbie Williams has been a draw card but really it’s the whole event that attracts people from around the country,” Mr Malinauskas said.
“It’s been a bit easier this year because we had a full 12-month run, whereas last year we had to put the race together in six months, and that additional time has paid off.
“For as long as we’ve got anything to do with it, it’s here to stay.”
Race-goer Belinda Hanns, 31, of Hallett Cove, inherited a love of racing from her father Alan, who raced sports sedans in the 1970s.
“Everything has been really great, but there’s a lot off the track too,” she said.
“There’s heaps more cars out in the paddock to look at, BMX, motor-cross, and kid’s attractions too.
“We’re happy to have it back as a street circuit as well – we went to (Tailem) Bend last year and it’s just not the same.”
School-leaver Nicholas O’Connor, 18, of Williamstown, one day hopes to see the race on the other side of the barricade.
“I’ve always wanted to be a mechanic for one of the race drivers … if I could get here it would be a dream,” he said.
“This is actually the first time I’ve actually come to an Adelaide 500, but I’ve always watched it on TV, and thought, why not? So I came down with my grandpa and it’s been great.”
For Richard Townsend, 56, of Port Noarlunga and his wife Lynda, 55, the main attraction was off the circuit at the Kindig Custom Car Show, where they exhibited a souped up, apple-green 1933 Chevrolet sedan.
Mr Townsend said he started restoring it in 2002 and finished in 2017, spending more than $80,000.
“It was a feat of perseverance, you really have to enjoy the build,” Mr Townsend said.
“It’s the creativity and challenge of building a hot rod, you’re not confined to restoring a car, you can modify and build into the car whatever you want.”
“I think it’s fantastic that the government gets behind sports other than footy and realises we are a state of car culture. I don’t think a lot of people realise how much money people spend and how much passion they put into building these cars.
“The car show has really added to it, and if they keep doing it next year, we’ll keep coming back.”
But for Francesco and Santino Fuda, 9 and 7, the reason they were there was simple.
“The cars are very loud and very fast, and we love supporting Red Bull,” Francesco said.
IF YOU NEED SUPPORT, CONTACT LIFELINE ON 13 11 14 OR BEYOND BLUE ON 1300 224 636
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