Robyn (19/10/10, Academy 2, Manchester)

It's been a busy week, with 2 gigs, a theatre trip, a work awards evening and a fantastic night of dancing. It all began on Tuesday night, with a trip to Manchester to see Swedish pop star Robyn, Andrew's favoured artiste. I liked her eponymous album from a couple of years back, but I've not really heard much of her new stuff.

I was pissed off at the beginning of the night. I really do think I'm too old for gigs at student unions! I don't get why the ticket says the doors open at 7.30pm, posters at the venue say Robyn was due on at 9pm and she didn't actually set foot on stage until 9.30pm. How is this acceptable?! Well because the gig organisers obviously have no regard for people who've been at work all day or are at work the following day. Thanks to the late start, we had to get the last train home, back after half midnight, and I like my sleep. So after standing around for 1.5 hrs (we weren't daft enough to turn up at the time on the ticket), enduring the awful DJing 'skills' of the female chav duo warm up act, I was not really in the mood for Robyn.

Thankfully, Robyn knocked my socks off with an incredibly energetic set that would put Anders from Alphabeat to shame. The set list ran as follows:

1. Intro
2. Fembot
3. Cry When You Get Older
4. Cobrastyle
5. Hang With Me
6. We Dance To The Beat / Don't Fucking Tell Me What To Do
7. Love Kills
8. The Girl and the Robot
9. Dancing On My Own
10. Dream On
11. With Every Heartbeat
    
12. In My Eyes
13. Konichiwa Bitches
14. Be Mine!
    
15. Dancehall Queen
16. Show Me Love

A massive 16 songs, including 2 encores, as the crowd was mad for her, none more so than Andrew. Robyn bounded about the stage, munching a banana, looking like something from Live & Kicking back in the 90's, with a fab voice and a great deal of energy. A couple of the tracks from 'Robyn' had their music tracks tinkered with, and I wasn't so keen on that, though for the most part everything sounded great with a live band. I don't know the songs well enough to comment much more, but the evening, once it got started, was a success from where I was standing (just behind a very tall man).