Robbie Williams in Munich 2022: Exciting & disconcerting

It’s a double stress test. Firstly, what about the legendary show talent Robbie Williams today? On the other hand: does he at least show that the giant arena at the Munich exhibition center can really be used to create an atmosphere? Key question: Would the weather cooperate?

Nobody will forget this evening. Probably the best entertainer of his generation at the peak of his career, he still wraps the largest crowds around his little finger. A super show Munichin which abysmal self-doubt turns into anthemic narcissism, started with the star flying onto the stage hanging upside down to the programmatic hit “Let Me Entertain You”…

Robbie Williams throws up on the stage in Munich

That’s how it was 19 years ago, when Robbie Williams was in a completely sold-out Olympic stadium with thousands upon thousands of people outside, who in the meantime, in total silence in the arena vibrating with enthusiasm, he simply brought along with them through echo ovations. So whether there are really more people on this Saturday evening in the for this summer, for Andrew Gabalier, Helene Fischer and he built the giant arena, so whether this is really the biggest concert here by the 48-year-old still biggest entertainer. Robbie speaks of 100,000 spectators – and of course it is unfair to measure him today against this great moment from back then. But in direct relation to this, on this very evening, which therefore seems like a great revival, he repeatedly puts himself on it.

Robbie Williams announces a film about himself in 2023 – and another concert?

Not least because he now comes on stage again – as has not been the case on the tours since then – with his super mood hit, but this time simply steps there, does not fly in after the audience animation has previously led the audience questioningly to it on the screens. From (all in English, of course) “Is anyone out there?” to “Am I still your son?” (anticipating his most characteristic song, which will soon be played) – and the en masse replies to yes are followed by: “Let Me Entertain You!” But what is really left of the entertainer, who, after a two-year delay due to Covid, is also celebrating his 25th anniversary as a solo artist here?

But before we go to the comparable revival rain, let’s first look at the new products. And no, it wasn’t anything that was previously rumoured. Neither did Helene Fischer join him on stage to sing the joint duet that was playing on his bad Christmas album. Robbie was still performing with the opening act Lufthaus, a British DJ duo for which he sang a few vocals, but could have retired as part of their hackneyed party performance… No, Robbie is resigning his best vocal direction that evening with “Better Man”, a film of the same name, which will be shown by him, with him and about him in the coming year. And he may also be planning another concert in Munich in 2023.

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The weather was perfect for the Robbie Williams concert at the Munich Exhibition Centre

He is playing, he assures, for the last time the evergreen “Sweet Caroline”, which he has always sung with his father, who now suffers from Parkinson’s disease, says hello to the fans, thanks for all the years, but now hardly ever nor leaves the house. Robbie also plays a new song with “Lost”, which, as he admits, would also go well with the self-doubt program from back then and which in any case belongs to the anniversary album that will be released next Friday, which is otherwise largely a best-of, the greatest hits just rearranged with an orchestra. But he preferred to leave that at home for this evening in this huge arena, the 150 meter wide monster stage roars what Robbie’s band and singers deliver powerfully with maximum volume into the Munich evening sky.

Which, by the way, delivers a great surprise itself: bad weather was announced, comparable to the rainy day at Helene Fischer a week earlier – but instead everything stays dry, only to “Angels” at the end of the exactly two-hour program do the first drops fall. The coquettish Robbie, who seemed to be trying his luck with “Monsoon” as the second song and torrents of rain and lightning on the giant monitors, while thunderstorm fronts riddled with lightning were actually piling up on the horizon: once again he was a lucky boy. At the end of the concert, however, things were not going well for him. In the encores, in a way that hardly any other singer would admit, he explained openly that he had just thrown up behind the drums and felt somehow ill – not without apologizing to a Barbara in the front row, to whom he addressed this time directed his “She’s the One”, but was only able to perform half of it due to the nausea. Was it because he now sucks too many mints instead of smoking?

The entertainer Robbie Williams with a cannonade of self-quotes

At least this time it’s Barbara, this time for “Something Stupid” he asks a Lisa on stage, for “Road to Manderlay” he asks the audience again to try out the bambam and to sing along fervently, so he then shoots souvenirs into the audience again with an airgun . He introduces himself once again with: “My name is Robbie Williams, this is my band” (Guy Chambers, who formed his Legend days, also belongs to it as music director) – “and this is my ass”, of course the rear end again presenting. He talks again about what makes him a “fucked up guy”, this schizophrenia between self-doubt and narcissism, and above all thanks again and again that the Germans here are still so loyal to him, after all these years. Asks again if you want to grow old together, keeps assuring the audience of his love. And Robbie ironically breaks up intimate moments that have just arisen with great pleasure…

They are gestures and jokes that are actually pure self-quotes – and above all when it comes to his mental state, one can ask oneself whether this constant confirmation of the patterns of yore winning the great triumphs from one’s own darkness is not at all manifested such a healthy role that he, the family man, needs to continue being a pop star. Or if that’s just Robbie and has to be? See “Am I Still Your Son?” For the fifth song, he plays the magnificently abysmal “Come Undone,” which is where the line comes from, and which reveals him as a saint and a whore. How long can you endure something like that? Can you just play this?

In any case, Robbie Williams has already lifted the audience with all his hits from the stands 300 meters away with the first songs – in the second half there follows a whole acclaimed salvo with “Millennium”, “Hot Fudge”, ” Kids”, “Feel” and “Rock DJ”. It is true that this huge area at the trade fair simply does not ignite what has always worked reliably for him in the Olympic Stadium: The fact that La Ola, the wave of enthusiasm, rises in the stands even before his appearance and then spreads through the entire oval – here it peters out as a flash in the pan in the periphery. And Robbie is the last one who wouldn’t understand and process the problems of such a place with his entertainer instincts, saying: ‘You guys in the back, you must be watching a whole different show, probably Coldplay. You wouldn’t even notice if I let my penis hang out of my pants for the whole show. Are the screens really big enough for you?” But it can’t quite catch up with this deficit of being too diffuse either, especially since the stage is used in the magnificently desperate “Supreme”, which strangely enough is based on his very nice lucky hit “I Love My Life”. follows, always booming so loudly that at least because of this his singing seems a bit strained.

Robbie concert in Munich: And the last highlight spoils the stadium announcer…

So from this evening in 2022, 19 years later, rather mixed feelings remain. But at what a level! Because this Robbie Williams not only has all the gorgeous pop anthem material from back then (which he has by no means exhausted here) – he is also present to large parts of the audience in such an arena in a way, despite the inevitable distance, which, in comparison to Andreas Gabalier and Helene Fischer, characterize the entertainer: seems playful, confident, unsophisticated, natural, as himself.

And despite his discomfort, he also put the most beautiful punchline at the very end. Once again he asks people to sing the refrain of the song that made his solo start a success, so maybe 100,000 spectators sing “Angels” a cappella and see for the first time on all giant monitors: themselves, their own blissful crowd in the dizzy moment – ​​while the star of the evening steals away from the stage in the quiet rain and quietly, almost unnoticed, but probably also touched. Very beautiful. Only then, in the middle of this fading soulfulness, does the unspeakable stage announcer blare into the microphone that it was great after all, and ask the people to blare along: “Such a day, as wonderful as today…” Which practically nobody does , it’s over, stalled – maybe also befitting the huge events at the Munich Exhibition Centre, not the real thing. Not even with Revival Robbie.

So the double conclusion is daring: With everything that was already there in 2003, up to the last real highlight of his work with the album “Escapology”, with songs like “Me and my Monkey”, with “Mr Bojangles”…, would have this undoubtedly still impressive show talent Robbie Williams made his fans even happier – the attempt to expand this sensational early phase of his solo career has only led to pressure drops to this day; and an arena like the one at the trade fair will enable astronomical box office results, but will never let the masses sink into a common frenzy like the Olympic Stadium. So Robbie, you know what’s coming up next – your entertainer instincts can’t possibly tell you otherwise.

But first relax. You still have a huge concert ahead of you, soon in Bonn. And then farewell, with Ayda and the children in California, as healthy as possible, away from the madness that hundreds of thousands love you for. But they would not grant you less happiness and peace, reconciliation with yourself.