Robyn Hitchcock: I Often Dream of Trains

2009 concert film

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Cult artist Robyn Hitchcock reflects on his 1984 solo album I Often Dream of Trains and performs the album (with a few extras) with some pals.

I just did some math. I've been listening to this guy for over half my life. He's one-third of Shane's Holy Trinity of Musical Peoples. I like all of his albums at least partially and a lot of them I love and a few of them I'm obsessive about and will always listen to. This is one of the latter, so it's cool to see him introspect on the times when the songs blossomed and the 25 intervening years since. Some of the songs (the title track, "Uncorrected Personality Traits," "My Favourite Buildings") are performance staples anyway, but a few probably hadn't been performed live in a long time. There's some of his typical between-song banter, largely improvised but with some that are obviously a little more written, but the focus is mostly on the songs with sparse instrumentation (piano, one or two guitars, the occasional trumpet or shaker) played in a quiet atmosphere. Interview snippets from, appropriately, a train add a bit of background on some of the songs although it's more likely that some of Hitchcock's descriptions will confuse more than enlighten. I really like how the main bulk of the concert was bookended by "I Often Dream of Trains" as a low-budget early-eighties video and then again in the live setting with more visuals from the video contrasting Hitchcock now and Hitchcock then. The whole thing is a lot looser than Demme's Storefront Hitchcock movie even though the song and visual variety add a little something extra to that one. My only gripe is that the show should have ended with the final haunting notes of the title track. Instead, Hitchcock flees the stage, exchanges his polka-dotted shirt for a flowery one, and performs an encore made up of recent songs. The encore was extraneous. Oh, and I guess I can gripe that not every song from Trains made the cut. The acapella "Furry Green Atom Ball" is definitely one I would have loved to see. A must for Hitchcock fans.

This is on Sundance a couple few more times this month. Catch the fever!