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pups
| | Posted on Friday, May 28, 2004 - 02:13 pm: | |
For me, the most striking thing about the Go-Betweens live, is Robert’s bizarre and humorous stage presence. The weird dancing, the dramatic stares, the way he steps forward proudly to show-off these incredibly simple guitar solos.
I’m a relatively new fan - I first saw Robert on stage in the early 90’s. Was he always like this on stage? Did it happen gradually? Did it happen suddenly? I’d love to know what he was like in the early days. |
Jeff Whiteaker
| | Posted on Friday, May 28, 2004 - 08:33 pm: | |
I think it was gradual. I have a live Go-Betweens video from '83 (show was in support of Before Hollywood, not too long after Vickers joined), and although it's a good show, Forster is about as stiff as a fence post. He seemed young, a bit self-conscious, serious, etc... Maybe that was an off-night for him, I don't know, but in the live video there is none of the ironic, flashy, eccentric showman thing he's known for now. According to Nichols' book, Robert seems to have started his shtick in the mid-80s, maybe around Liberty Belle, which may be about the time he began to sometimes wear dresses onstage and inflict minimal amounts of damage on his guitar (a detail Nichols mentions in his book). It seems he'd play it straight through most of the set, and then suddenly burst into his low-level eccentric bit at some point during the show. My guess is that it was a gradual transformation relative to his increasing comfort with being on stage. But this is only a guess as I hadn't ever seen Robert live until '96 on the Warm Nights tour. |
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