Something appears to be up with Robbie Williams. This week, he and The Other Four in Take That are nearing the end of their triumphant imperial waltz around the British Isles’ biggest roof-free venues. Back as a five-piece for the first time in 16 years, they are the UK’s biggest band. And Williams, a man with a healthy messiah complex, must be thrilled at his game-changing role in the greatest comeback since Lazarus.
And yet, the man-band’s black sheep has been, true to boggle-eyed form, treating audiences to his unique brand of erratic behaviour. On stage at Wembley Stadium on Monday, the avowedly teetotal 37-year-old was as “manic” as when he got trapped in the scenery on The X Factor. “We did think he was high on something extra,” says Lindsay Pullen, 29, a fan from Guildford, Surrey. “Or maybe he was just enjoying the moment and the adrenalin.”
But would high spirits explain his rather choice vocabulary? “There were a lot of kids in the audience,” Pullen adds. “And I imagine there were a few conversations on the train home that night explaining what ‘whores’ are . . .”
In summer ’11 such antics are true to wobbly-Robbie form. In Cardiff last month, he split his trousers and sang in his undercrackers while singing Let Me Entertain You. Back in the Sixties, P. J. Proby’s career never recovered from his own Zippergate.
But Williams has never been a man to learn from the past. Four days after Cardiff, he was cock-a-hoop again. After another wardrobe malfunction, 82,300 Dubliners were treated to the sight of the Williams winkle: his penis “popped out” during a particularly energetic dance routine.
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By the time the circus rolled into London last Friday, Robbie was on egomaniacal fire. During the short solo set he’s been granted as a prelude to the now-we-are-five headline performance, he told the Wembley audience: “The Rolling Stones have done two nights here. Oasis did three. Take That are here for eight on the trot. Mick Jagger can lick Gary Barlow’s face. Noel Gallagher can lick my arse.” Gallagher, of course, was quick to shoot back with his own epigrammatic quippery. “Lick his big fat Bobby Butlins arse? Wow! The hormone replacements must be doing the trick, eh? I’d rather suck on his man boobs.”
When I interviewed Williams last year he was wired on something. His opening gambit was to ask what drugs I favoured. He then admitted that although giving up cocaine was a plus, he missed “weed” terribly. But it was all for the good. “l get psychosis from having this cup of tea,” he puffed.
Then, when I interviewed Williams and the rest of Take That two months ago, he assured me that, “I’m kinda balanced now. I wasn’t last time I saw you.” He said he hadn’t known back then that he was ill. But his LA doctor had helped him “sort out” his mystery ailment: a testosterone deficiency. Now Robbie injects the “sex hormone” twice a week. Mainlining testosterone? That, fluffed by the nightly adulation of tens of thousands of fans, might be enough to send anyone a little potty — and potty-mouthed.
But perhaps we shouldn’t be too flippant about the Crazy World of Robbie Williams. According to Pullen, at Wembley on Monday the singer also told the crowd that over the past month, he’d “lost a few people who were very close to him”. Then he sang Angels.