Robbie Williams
Brisbane Entertainment Centre
September 17.

We live in an age when the word “brilliant” tends to be so overused that it loses any cache or true meaning. 41-year-old English singer and songwriter Robbie Williams is worthy of being called brilliant, though one gets the impression he sometimes feels far from it.

As one fifth of 90s boy band Take That, then one of the most successful British bands of all-time, Williams rose to fame young and eventually left the band in 1995 after vicious and bitter stoushes with fellow member (and primary songwriter) Gary Barlow.

When Williams released his first solo album, 1997’s Life Thru A Lens, it shot to number one, as did his cover of George Michael’s “Freedom,” the tune Michael had written describing his time as a teen idol in Wham!

The lyrics might as well have been written for Williams, so perfectly do they echo his own experiences as a teen heartthrob.

Tonight Williams, back in Australia a year since he sold-out his Swing When You’re Winning tour, is his usual energetic self, taking to the stage after an impressive show of operatic grandeur and projected graphics with a rousing rendition of “Let Me Entertain You.”

From the moment he sets foot onstage, Williams gives his all and has the crowd in the palm of his hand, wowing us with a set-list that features something for everybody from teenage fans to those of us old enough to remember seeing Take That play at the same venue in the mid-90s.

Performers of Williams’ calibre are rare. He is what the industry and the press like to call “the complete package” – he is a formidable singer, he can dance, he’s witty and urbane, and a cracking songwriter.

For much of his career those songs have been co-written with his long-time friend and producer, Guy Chambers. Many of the songs Williams performs tonight are born of that collaboration and for two hours the sold-out crowd is treated to gem after gem, all performed with verve and passion.

Williams, now happily married and a father to two young children, underwent a very public crisis after leaving Take That.

It involved well-documented feuds with Barlow and, famously, with Liam and Noel Gallagher from Oasis – tonight he sings part of “Wonderwall” – and a spiral into depression and addiction that he dealt with very privately but has documented in his lyrics.

Though he is today one of the most successful male pop stars in the world, he admits that he harbours demons and fights to keep them in check, but marriage and fatherhood seem to have given him a stronger sense of self and security.

Tonight he sings the self-lacerating “Come Undone,” a song about his addiction and partying that is addressed to his mother and features the heartbreaking lines, They’re selling razor blades and mirrors in the street / I pray that when I’m coming down you’ll be asleep / And if I ever hurt you your revenge will be so sweet / Because I’m scum and I’m your son / I come undone.

Williams’ is a show that skilfully blends the playful and the thoughtful.

He is a born performer with the sort of charisma and humour that cannot be mimicked or faked. It is that emotion that elevates his already impressive songs to even greater heights. He is no longer content to hide himself from his fans and it is that naked vulnerability that is so beautifully balanced out by his cheekiness and sarcasm.

The crowd heckles him for a rendition of “Back For Good” when he talks about Take That and he good-naturedly indulges us, the entire crowd singing along to what was the band’s biggest hit single.

“Monsoon” – a song written for stadium gigs if ever there was one – segues into part of The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” while “Me and My Monkey” is followed by “Road to Mandalay.”

For an artist with 10 studio albums under his belt, Williams has settled on a set-list that deftly and engrossingly traverses his large body of work and peppers the performance with amusing personal anecdotes, including a story about women photographing him in a London communal garden as he spent time with his daughter, Theodora.

He approached them and politely asked if they would delete the shots. While exiting the garden carrying his daughter, he said under his breath, “Fuckers!” Alas, young Teddy, as he calls her, heard him and loudly screamed, “Bye fuckers!” while madly waving at the culprits.

It is after that that Williams mentions the song he wrote for her, “Go Gentle,” before launching into one that he is currently writing for his baby son.

He performs the tentatively titled “Motherfucker” acoustically and it’s hard not to smile at a song where the performer sings lines like, Your mother’s a nutter / Your father’s a nutter / You were born into a family of mad motherfuckers.

Next comes “Better Man,” touchingly sung with his father, Pete, “Supreme” and a brief stint offstage for a costume change. When he re-emerges, Williams is clad in a kilt and, as he’s only too happy to show the crowd, a pair of underpants with a lion printed on the crotch.

A cover of “We Will Rock You” moves into another of “I Love Rock and Roll” before he steamrolls through one of his most personally revelatory songs, “Feel,” a song that brought a tear to this reviewer’s eye. Then comes the anthemic “Millennium,” prefaced by part of Lorde’s “Royals.”

“Whole Lotta Love” and “Kids” – his backing singers ably filling Kylie Minogue’s shoes for the duet – before a jaw-droppingly intense performance of Queen’s iconic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Interestingly, Queen’s Brian May recently said that there are only two singers he would allow to perform Freddie Mercury’s songs – Williams and American musician Adam Lambert, who is currently touring with the band.

Pitch perfect performances of “She’s The One” and crowd-pleaser “Angels” go down a treat and Williams, standing under a muted spotlight, bravely performs “Hello Sir,” a spoken word piece that appeared as a hidden track on Life Thru A Lens.

It is an absolutely withering takedown of the cruel teacher who mocked and sneered at Williams’ dream of being a pop star and instead advised him to join the army. He performs it with obvious emotion but also a degree of triumph.

He has, after all, more than proven his former teacher wrong.

Or, as he puts it, Thanks for the advice and I’m sure it’ll do / For the negative dickheads just like you / As for now, I’ve a different weapon / Stage and screen is about to beckon / And here I sit in First-Class / Bollocks, sir / Kiss my arse.

It is under a muted spotlight that Williams ends the show with Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” somehow made all the more poignant by the performance of “Hello Sir.”

While many would compromise themselves and their talent and integrity for fame, Robbie Williams has solidly built a successful international career by writing songs that range from the infectious and humorous to the profoundly personal.

One can but hope that the teacher who attempted to shatter his dreams lived long enough to see the boy whose ambitions he mocked have more than come to fruition.

Williams is one of the greatest pop stars and singer/songwriters of his generation, a true contradiction who manages to at once bear his soul and, in an age where tabloid culture insists we’re entitled to know everything about anybody with a public profile, still hold something back for himself.

One gets the impression that it is that very thing that he keeps inside, buried deep, not only gives him the strength and security to write and perform the songs he does, but ultimately also makes him the singularly brilliant performer he is.

– Heidi Maier.