Robbie Williams @ Adelaide 500, Adelaide 4/3/2018

Robbie Williams headlining an after race concert at a motorsports event. What could possibly go wrong?

In a desperate attempt to secure a prime spot and to be in groping distance of Robbie, I rocked up at 2pm (alone might I add, as apparently my friends aren’t as mental as I am) in my Harden The F Up singlet from Smokemart and my fave flannelette shirt (hey I like to embrace a theme and any excuse to dress bogan!) As I was immediately hit with the delightful smells of Eau de Bogan – a mixture of car fumes, dust, B.O., cheeky beers and cigarettes – I took in my surroundings and began to question my poor life choices. Why the hell am here I alone at a car race? Will I get bashed by a bogan called Davo? How many old mates here are called Davo? Where the hell is this actual concert? How do I cross the race track without getting hit by a car and dying? If you don’t like car racing is that being race-ist? Why are those jets so friggen loud? Oooh a Vilis pie truck!!

Similar to a motorsports event, a Robbie Williams concert is also a fuel injected, highly driven experience, full of action with loads of testosterone. Fast paced and exciting from the start to the finish, with the winner being the main man himself.

After an intro of Eminem’s Lose Yourself to get us all pumped, we were invited to begin our worship towards the pop king of song by preaching the National Anthem of Robbie assisted with the words up on the giant screen, karaoke style including: “He’ll stand proud and fearless, his face forever young, God bless our Robbie, he is so well hung!” (Something tells me that his song writing buddy Guy Chambers did not take credit for this lyrical masterpiece).

Kicking off with The Heavy Entertainment Show, followed by Let Me Entertain You, and entertain us – he certainly did for the next 1 hour and 45 minutes! You know you’re in for a treat when a popstar says at the start of a show “I’m Robbie F*cking Williams, this is my band, this is my cock (*cue flashing of his jocks*) and tonight your ass is mine!” By this point we’re all equal parts hyperventilating because we just saw Robbie William’s jocks / devo because we failed to get our cameras ready in time to capture said jock flashing moment. Dammit. But dude, it’s Robbie. He aint wearing jocks with a tiger on his cock region if he wasn’t going to flash us multiple times during the night right? (*keeps camera poised and on stand by for the rest of the night just in case*).

My fave song Monsoon was next and at this point I knew it was totally worth lining up early as I had secured a front row spot without getting into any bitch fights or losing the feeling in my legs by sitting in awkward positions with limited personal space while waiting for almost 7 hours. Robbie strutted up and down the catwalk and paused quite regularly near us and at one point I thought: Is he looking at me? Nah, he can’t be looking at me. Normal dudes in real life don’t even look at me why the hell would Robbie Williams be looking at me. Next minute – OMG Robbie fucking Williams is actually looking at ME and now he’s singing the lyrics “You know that spending one night with me, guarantees you celebrity…” to me and pointing his stick thing (actual stick, not a euphemism for something else) and now I’m touching Robbie William’s stick and I’m never washing that hand ever again!!! (Ok so that moment lasted for all of about 10 seconds but it was one of THE BEST 10 seconds of my life!!!) Also this happened in the first 15 minutes of the show. How the hell was I meant to cope for the rest of the night

The following section was a mixed bag with something for everyone. Minnie the Moocher for oldies that like a bit of jazz; George Michael’s Freedom which he covered for his first solo single back in 1996; Love My Life – one of his more recent hits and a song he wrote for his kids (*cue cute story about his adorable children including an anecdote about his son Charlton using the F word for the first time. Something many of the bogans in the crowd could relate to no doubt*).

Speaking of bogan, he was all across the Adelaide 500 car race stuff asking the crowd if they were team Ford or Holden, mentioned how he was just in Geelong and made reference to ex-Crows footy player Patrick Dangerfield to which the crowd boo-d (I don’t know about football things but I was well impressed with whoever had briefed him on the local bogan knowledge!) He said he was a cashed up bogan and asked the crowd “if you’re a bogan and you know it clap your hands.” Ken oath mate. Not surprised that there was A LOT of clapping in response…

Knowing his audience well, what does every bogan love? An epic drunken singalong section with highlights including Livin’ on a Prayer, Rehab, Take on Me, The Best, U Can’t Touch This and Don’t You Want Me.

The nostalgia continued with a trip back to his old boyband days with Take That’s Never Forget – complete with hands in the air actions (*as every Take That fan in the crowd wets themselves with excitement that he’s actually doing a Take That song that isn’t Back For Good*) Being a massive Take That fan, I too was wetting myself with excitement while the non-Take That fans surrounding me had no clue what the hell this song was and why I kept throwing my hands in the air.

By this point Robbie mentions that he wants to pull someone up on stage (*as every girl in the crowd swiftly raises her hand to volunteer*) and starts searching the audience for the owner of a sign with a polite request to “Please sign my boob.” He finds Boob Girl and the lucky bitch then gets pulled up on stage, while we watch on in jealousy as she not only gets her boob signed, gets serenaded by Robbie on a bench singing Something Stupid and speaking of something stupid it then spiralled into them slow dancing, Boob Girl grabbing his ass, his leg, whatever she could touch she did! (Hey girl, no judgement here! I’d be doing the same thing!) Next minute she’s giving him what looked like a dry humping/lap dance type scenario and at one point she even gave him a cheeky bite on his chin. (Let’s hope his immunisation shots are all up to date). On a scale of 1 to restraining order, Boob Girl REALLY got her money’s worth from this once in a lifetime opportunity to be in actual groping distance of Robbie and judging by the giant grin on his face, he appeared to be enjoying every minute of this! (Even if he did make a #metoo joke about it afterwards).

And here’s me getting excited about touching his stick.

Speaking of Robbie’s stick, once they dragged Boob Girl off the stage he joked about that scenario giving him a semi, which provided a perfect segway to talk about porn. “You know you’re getting old when you’re watching porn and you’re thinking – geez that bed looks comfy!” Shortly after a couch (that does look pretty comfy) gets brought up on stage and Robbie starts talking about his dad Pete, who inspired him to become a performer. Next minute OMG Pete is on stage and joins Robbie on the comfy couch singing ‘Sweet Caroline.’ (*cue yet another crowd sing a long moment of the night*)

Now here’s a tip for anyone wanting to get noticed by Robbie at a concert. Make a sign that either makes reference to boobs or bum. The next lucky bitch that got some Robbie attention was a chick that had a sign saying “Remember Me?” And seriously how good is Robbie’s memory because he did remember her. But why wouldn’t you remember someone that asked you to autograph her bum which she then got tattooed!!?? (WTF! I must ass you a question though Bum Girl, why would you do that?? What’s wrong with simply getting a CD or a poster signed?) Anyways whatever it takes to get noticed I guess AND Robbie even dedicated She’s the One to her. (Suitable song choice, as I’m sure most guys would think a girl who allowed you do stuff to her bum would be ‘the one’).

Side note: I wonder if Boob Girl will also get her autograph tattooed.

Feel’ brought a pretty spectacular laser and lighting show similar to that of the fancy Adelaide Fringe light display on North Terrace, but heaps better cos it’s Robbie Williams. While the encore including Angels had, at Robbie’s request, everyone’s phone lit up and waving in the air. “F*cking amazing Adelaide!” he gushed in awe at the magical sea of lights that the crowd had created. Meanwhile I was more amazed at the fact that all these people still had phone battery life left at the end of a concert as I was down to only 5% and sorry Robbie I wasn’t wasting that contributing to this magical light show because what if he flashed his jocks again and I needed battery to capture this moment and more importantly how else could I get an Uber home. Either way, it looked awesome and as the millennials would say – the Robbie concert was #lit.

The biggest surprise of the evening was his version of ‘Australia’s national anthem’ Men at Work’s Oz classic – Down Under. (“Strewth! Finally a song I bloody know aye!” – said all the bogan men who were only there for the car racing but forced to stay on for the concert with their missus).

Finishing off the night with Frank Sinatra’s My Way, this was a suitable song to end an epic evening of a unique mix of old and new hits, classics, covers, cheesey karaoke singalongs, audience interactions, boob signing, stick touching and cheeky banter in a way that only a performer like Robbie Williams knows how to! Please keep on doing it Your Way Robbie!

Leaving the stage midway during a crowd sing along to an acoustic medley of his hits, all of a sudden Robbie was gone, no good byes, not even a catch ya later cobber! Like going on a date with a guy that you had an amazing whirlwind time with and you’re on a high and think everything is going really well, but then all of a sudden he does a cheeky runner and disappears when he goes to the toilet, without simply saying a polite good night. Is that it? Is he really gone? How hard is it to say k, thanks, bye and a polite see you again soon? We need closure! Surely he’ll be back? We can’t be left hanging like this!!

And just like the guy from that date, this was the last we saw of Robbie…

As we navigated our way through the crowd to the perfect post-concert soundtrack of Time Of My Life, eager to get home to wash away the smell of Eau de Bogan, the only thing I was Holden onto was these awesome memories of our evening with Robbie Williams and of course, my unwashed hand that touched his stick.

Review by Flower Knutas