Theatre Royal Drury Lane 8th September 1974
2005 live album by Robert Wyatt & Friends / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Theatre Royal Drury Lane 8th September 1974?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Theatre Royal Drury Lane 8th September 1974 is a 2005 live album by English progressive rock musician Robert Wyatt, documenting a concert on that date at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. The concert took place the year after Wyatt had fallen from a fourth-storey window and become paralysed from the waist down. Since the accident, Wyatt has used a wheelchair. The concert remains Wyatt's first and only live performance as a headlining solo artist.
Theatre Royal Drury Lane 8th September 1974 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Live album by Robert Wyatt & Friends | ||||
Released | 10 October 2005 | |||
Recorded | 8 September 1974 | |||
Venue | Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in Covent Garden, London | |||
Studio | Mixed at Gallery Studios in Kilburn, London in 2005 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 70:54 | |||
Label |
| |||
Robert Wyatt & Friends chronology | ||||
|
The concert served as the live premiere of Wyatt's studio album Rock Bottom, which had been released a little over a month prior. In addition to the songs from Rock Bottom, the set list included cover of songs by Wyatt's former bands; a performance by Julie Tippetts of her own song, "Mind of a Child"; and most notably, an extended version of "I'm a Believer", a song written by Neil Diamond for American pop-rock band The Monkees. Wyatt had just recorded and released his cover of "I'm a Believer", which became a surprise hit single in the UK. The assembled band, dubbed Robert Wyatt & Friends, included most of the musicians from the Rock Bottom recording sessions and several guests. Robert Wyatt & Friends consisted of Dave Stewart, Laurie Allan, Hugh Hopper of Soft Machine, Mongezi Feza, Gary Windo, Mike Oldfield, Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, Fred Frith of Henry Cow, Julie Tippetts, and Ivor Cutler. The BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel gave an introduction for Wyatt.
Contemporaneous reviews of the concert were positive. After the concert, Wyatt continued his recording career but stopped performing as a solo artist due to the difficulties of organizing a live backing band and his chronic, intense stage fright. Bootleg recordings of the concert emerged in the early 1980s. The official release in 2005 received generally favorable reviews, with critics praising the album as a showcase for Wyatt's vocals and a compelling document of the progressive Canterbury scene. Simon Reynolds wrote "[a]larming but true: one of the best releases of 2005 was recorded 31 years ago."[1] However, the official release suffers from inconsistent sound quality because about half of the original recordings had been lost.