ROBERT PALMER : Music & Style

Another terrible review from the New Musical Express, this time of Robert Palmer's 1983 concert at London Lyceum...

As dusk falls slowly over London, two blonde men in their 30s run a Remington around their rich, suntanned features and take stock of their famous reflections.

Robert Palmer breathes deeply and threads an expensive dark leather belt through immaculately pressed white linen trousers. Reaching for a well tailored short jacket with padded shoulders, he allows himself a self-congratulatory smirk that he's reached the last night of his British tour and still lives to tell the tale.

David Bowie just grins. His body never looked so good; and while hordes of moody Europeans talked fashionably about their music representing pure sex, he went off and did it - in minutes, on film, in the street, on the beach in the most inspiring rock video for ages.

Bowie's show is well under way at Wembley while Robert Palmer stands waiting in the wings as Spike Milligan sings Thank Heavens For Little Girls; I can't think why this seems so insidiously perveted...

Whatever his faults, Mr Palmer is accutely aware of his own limitations and has paced his performance accordingly, he rarely moves from the one spot. Furthermore, his movements are severely limited by his two hard and fast stage rules: 1/ Don't turn your back on the audience, and 2/ Don't smile too much. Because from the side and the back he resembles a waddling duck, and smiling makes him look like Elton John.

His winning formula of laid-back, lilting melodies works perfectly well until he starts forgetting those rules and breaks sweat. The jacket comes off and the myth crumbles.

You see, when Kool & The Gang vocalist James Taylor glides to the front of a stage smiling beautifully, and sings "You can have it (take my heart) if you want it (come on darling)..." it sounds like the kind of wonderful offer that no girl in her right mind could refuse. From Robert Palmer's lips these words assume the kind of going-cheap appeal of meat in the supermarket well passed its best: You can have if you want it.

The most enthusiastic applause comes from all the little Robert Palmers in the audience. Some guys have all the luck, and it could be you! - given a smart white suit, styled hair and some West Coast sunshine.

The one piece of Californian culture most obviously missing from his routine is the F-Plan diet.

Over at Wembley Bowie keeps swinging, as Robert Palmer collapses into his dressing room and loosens his belt with a sigh of relief.

Kristy McNeill (New Musical Express - June 1983)

Voir aussi :

• Pride Of Place  (Sounds - 1983)