Robbie Williams leads touching Warnie chant at Melbourne show

UK pop legend Robbie Williams has led a haunting chant for Shane Warne, catching up with the late spin king’s son in Melbourne.

Jackson Warne says he’ll cherish the moment Robbie Williams offered a touching tribute to his late father Shane during his Melbourne show on Saturday night.

Jackson and his girlfriend Kiah Broadsmith met the UK superstar backstage at Rod Laver Arena before Williams got the crowd to chant “Warnie” ahead of singing his hit, Feel.

“It was an honour to meet Robbie backstage before the show,’’ Jackson told the Herald Sun.

“He was kind enough to invite our family and friends to say hello.

“And it was very special that he started a Warnie chant in the middle of his concert.

“We had a really fun night. I’ll cherish that memory forever.”

.Robbie Williams with Jackson Warne and Kiah Broadsmith

Williams said he considered the cricket legend a dear friend and was one of the international stars who paid their respects to Warne at the spin king’s public memorial at the MCG on March 30.

Unable to be in Melbourne on the night, Williams performed an emotional version of his iconic hit Angels as a tribute to Warne at the memorial via a video from his LA home.

When Warne was playing, the cricket crowd would often chant “Warnie” in support of the Victorian spin king.

A number of Shane Warne’s close friends were in the crowd including Luke Tunnecliffe, who posted a video of Williams and the touching chant on Instagram.

Williams described Warne as “kind, charismatic, funny, charming” during his performance at the sporting great’s memorial.

“I only met Shane a few times. Before you meet him you think ‘he’s my mate’, and then when you meet him you know he’s definitely your mate,” Williams said.

“I was looking forward to spending more time with him because you seldom come across that kind of energy with people. Easy company, too.”

Earlier in March, Williams had described Warne as someone who transcended his sport.

“With Shane, he belonged to everybody,” Williams told ABC radio.

“He belonged to England, he belonged to Australia, he belonged to the world.

“And he did that thing, and he had that thing, that quality, that just lifted him several levels above everybody else as a personality, as a heart, and as a soul.”

Williams said Warne’s shock death at the age of 52 had made him reassess his life.

Robbie Williams with Jackson Warne and friends.

“It’s so massive when something like this happens that makes you take stock of where your life is, who you are, what you are, and what you want to be and what you want to do with your day, and what you want to do with the rest of your life,” he said.

Both shows are being filmed for the Better Man film, a movie based on the pop star’s rise to the top of the music world in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The former Take That singer had a second show at Rod Laver Arena on Sunday night.

Williams’ movements since arriving in mid April have been closely guarded. He was last in town in 2020 just before the pandemic hit, when he was due to perform during the Australian Grand Prix.

In pap pictures that have surfaced of filming, Australian actors Liam Head, Jesse Hyde and Chase Vollenweider are seen as part of the cast.

British actor Jake Simmance, star of Netflix hit series Anatomy of a Scandal, is tipped to play Gary Barlow.