Robbie Williams: A nice bloke with a good voice who’s not on drugs anymore releases quite good album that you ought to buy

Been a little quiet of late, but bursting out of the blocks after what was, in all reality, a fairly okay performance on the X Factor, comes Mr Robbie Williams at the BBC’s Electric Proms.

In what was without doubt a great show, in front of an adoring crowd, Robbie confirmed what I had thought about him for a very long time – that he’s a genuine star with more class and quality than most people give him credit for.

With the press already writing him off before the run-in to Christmas and the – dramatic pause – battle with the reality TV production line of pseudo-stars, Burke, Boyle and Cole – Robbie would be forgiven for thinking that the only thing the media would really like to see him do is (a) overdose or (b) rejoin Take That after his relaunch nosedives.

I wonder whatever happened to hoping for the best for our pop kids – that they do well and sell bucketloads. I come from a heritage of the Smash Hits age, when everyone was brilliant and opprobrium was reserved for the dinosaurs of rock and pop.

But now, in this new century’s culture of manufactured conflict and petty hate machinations, what should we expect? The time for the headline that reads, “Robbie Williams: A nice bloke with a good voice who’s not on drugs anymore releases quite good album that you ought to buy” seems very far off. But not here – that’s why that is the title of the blogpost.

He’ll never have the gravitas to be a George Michael, but Robbie will be around for a very, very long time, irrespective of how much the haters papers are determined to bring him down before he’s even started on this round of the pop ferris wheel.

Anyway, back to the meat, and the show at the Camden venue earlier this week was simply brilliant. How much of that was down to the contributions of the Buddha of British Pop Music, Trevor Horn, and his wife and Oscar-nominated composer, Anne Dudley, who oversaw the production, and the presence of a string and brass section that added a huge lush layer to the proceedings, is open to conjecture.

You can’t deny, however, when a performer connects so easily with his audience, and can give a short showcase to new album tracks that easily stand with the rest of his back-catalogue with such confidence, that there is something magical about the lad.

So, the message is…

Stop being so bitter.

Love this pop life.

It’s called entertainment. Be entertained.

Let him entertain you…