I was lucky enough to meet Tim Minchin after one of his early gigs at the Edinburgh Fringe. He was signing merch after the gig and I'd joined the long queue of swooning girls waiting to meet him. When I got to the front, I became totally starstruck. I barely managed to utter my name and he joked about how he should spell mumble mumble. I bought his CD and a canvas bag (which I never took to the supermarket because he'd signed it). I returned to my friends feeling that he was going to be a huge star. He had an amazing ability to construct comic songs, the talent to blow you away with his piano skills and a star charisma that grabbed your attention.
I wasn't wrong. A few years later, he was playing large concert halls backed by the massive Heritage Orchestra having reworked his songs on a grand scale. It felt like he'd graduated to a higher level. Then we lost him to stage musicals and Hollywood (the latter of which he is still bitter about as the new studio execs wiped out five years of his life with one phone call). Still, he got a couple of songs out of the experience.
Now he's Back, hence the tour title, doing what he loves. Only, this time, it's a little different. He starts as he normally does, bare of feet and big of hair, just him and the piano. There is a curtain behind him, curtailing the depth of the stage, just a couple of spotlights beaming down at him. We think maybe he's deliberately going small as he hasn't toured in eight years and wants to build his confidence. He admits when he put the show together it was always going to be more about the songs, not the comedy, suggesting he was wrongly categorised as a comedian.
Then a few numbers in, he pulls a switcheroo. The curtain falls revealing his new backing band, complete with brass section. Columns, topped with spotlights, line the perimeter of the stage with a giant screen in the centre. The gig transforms into a rock concert, with new and old songs reworked for this new type of sound. It's a typical Tim move. He would never be satisfied giving us what we expected.
It was a great gig.
(I don't have any pictures of the performance for two reasons: firstly, a very funny sweary stage announcement instructed us not to, then Tim reinforced that message saying he wanted us to experience every moment of his show live, not from behind the lens of a camera. It seemed a fair request.)
Timings: Doors 6.30pm, Onstage 7.30pm, Show over 10.20pm.
Setlist
Set 1 - Before the Interval
If This Plane Goes Down
F Sharp
Mitsubishi Colt
Thank You God
Rock N Roll Nerd
15 Minutes
If I Didn't Have You
Woody Allen Jesus
Prejudice
Set 2 - After the Interval
Leaving L.A.
Cheese
I'll Take Lonely Tonight
Fuck This
Encore:
White Wine in the Sun
When I Grow Up
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