October 14, 2009

Come Daddy Dance with Robbie Williams

Robbie does his best deer in the headlights expression
Robbie Williams was due to make a triumphant comeback after a three year hiatus away from the pop world on reality show X Factor last night; however, his performance was nothing short of cringe worthy.

Williams took to the stage with a face dripping sweat and deer in the headlights eyeballs flittering around the room whilst working some killer dance moves. Well that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Robbie might have thought his moves were kickass but they were described by one insider as like “watching your dad dance at a wedding”. Ouch!

Dressed in a suit, way too small for him, Robbie performed the first single, “Bodies” from his new album, “Reality Killed The Video Star,” but consistently interrupted his own performance to shake hands with audience members and address the crowd. 'What a pleasure,' he said, as he shook hands with fans and dribbled sweat over their faces and eyes.

Faithful X Factor fans, took to the show’s online message boards to discuss Robbie’s performance. The majority of comments were not favourable with many concerned for Williams’ welfare, intoning that his time in rehab for addiction to prescription drugs seemed to have been useless.

The singer admitted the performance didn’t go too well. But who was to blame for this shoddiness? Not Robbie it would seem but a humble stage door, albeit a jammed stage door, at least that’s Robbie’s story and he’s sticking to it.

Robbie advised he had an amazing pose ready to launch himself on stage with it as “Bodies,” commenced; however, the jammed door threw him off his stride.

Apparently he was left to open the door by himself, and not one person on the entire set of X Factor was lurking around to help him with the task.

Robbie said: “At this point in the rehearsals the music starts… The doors open… BUT LIVE… The music starts… The doors don’t open.

“So we’re a few seconds in and the doors remain closed… a few more seconds and they’re still closed.

“Now I don’t know if you’ve ever had 10 million people plus ready to judge you on your first performance back in three years…

“But let me tell you, if the door between you and them isn’t opening that’s enough to throw you right off your stride.

“I had to wedge it open myself. That wasn’t part of the show.

“That was brute strength and now heavy nerves, shifting something I probably wouldn’t be able to move in the cold light of day. So there’s a bad start. I had a whole pose planned and what not.

“But that went out of the window.”

Ok either a prima donna is in our midst or Occupational Health & Safety needs to get down to the set of X Factor pronto and evaluate this so called, one hundred tonne stage door that a grown man has trouble opening. And while they are at it perhaps question why not one stage hand, roadie, publicity or friends were around to assist with this beast of a door that poor Robbie had to deal with alone.

And if that bad door was enough to shrink Williams’ confidence and produce such a huge river of sweat in his first performance, this early in the piece, god help the longevity of the comeback.

Robbie we are behind you but please pull it together, or at least grow some muscles so you can open the heaviest door, climb the highest mountain and swim the Pacific Ocean to reach your fans and deliver your very best performance, sweat free.