Some of you may have heard of a former boy band called ‘Take That’. When ‘Take That’ separated, a member of the band, Robbie Williams went solo. Now he is one of the biggest solo artists in the world and especially England and Europe. Robbie Williams has released three albums, which have all reached the top ten of the British album chart and the latest album ‘Sing when your Winning’, went straight to No. 1, selling more copies than the rest of the other top ten put together.

Robbie has recently been on a British tour, touring all the major cities, including Leeds, London, Manchester, Dublin, Cardiff and many more. I was fortunate enough to go to Manchester on the 26th of October to the Manchester Evening News arena. I arrived at the venue about 7.30 pm but Robbie Williams was not scheduled to play until about 9.00 pm. There was a support band playing at 7.45 pm and their set lasted about 1 hour. The leader of the support band was ex Kula Shaker star - Crispian Mills. The band consisted of only four players - lead guitarist/singer, bass guitarist, drummer and key board player.

8.45 pm and the arena filled up. It was crowded, the atmosphere was amazing and Mexican waves were sent around the arena. The curtain came back and the crowd went wild. The set was about 1hr. 30 minutes long and he played about twelve songs, including two encores. An encore is when the band exist the stage for about five minutes and then enter again and play some more tracks.

The songs I felt went down the best with the audience were, Rock DJ, Angels, Let Me Entertain You, She’s the One and Kids, which also includes Kylie Minogue. Four of these five tracks reached No. 1 in the British Singles Chart and the other reaching No. 2. Rock DJ remained at No. 1 for several weeks and is now one of the best selling records in the year 2000 to date.

If I ever get the chance to go and see Robbie Williams perform again, I would not hesitate because I have seen many bands perform live, including Stereophonics and a weekend at Glastonbury. Neither of these events matched the performance of Robbie Williams. The thing I enjoyed most about his performance was how he involved the audience in several of his songs.