What do you do if you’re a superstar who has pulled well over a million people to a stadium tour? If you’re as contrary as Robbie Williams, you play a gig in a shoebox. This late-night show at the 600-capacity Dingwalls, the smallest venue of his career to date, is a rum event. It was originally a launch evening for a new album, Britpop, now postponed to February. Williams makes no bones about why. “It’s because of Taylor Swift,” he admits, in a week where her new album The Life of a Showgirl is outselling the rest of the UK Top 20 put together. “I could pretend it’s not, but it is. It’s selfish. I want a 16th No 1 album.”
Bounding on stage just as the pubs are closing, a grinning Williams clearly relishes the intimate environment. “I’m not doing all that stadium bravado and pointing,” he vows, launching into a full, stripped-down run-through of his 1997 debut album, Life Thru a Lens, with lengthy between-song reminisces of the circumstances of its making.
