It has been an interesting six months for Robyn and New York City, she arrived in the city for the first time in years with Kelis on a co-headlining tour that took them to book stores, Webster Hall and Music Hall of Williamsburg, mind you they sold out every night. Robyn then returned in November, in one of the greatest gigs Terminal 5 ever put on and now she arrives by herself at the second biggest stage in the city. What has brought Robyn on that stage and increasing size platforms, is not just her brilliant display of pop music but her stage presence. She is unlike anyone you will ever see, you cannot compare her to anyone, what she does on stage is just totally organic and unique that everyone in the music industry should reconsider their careers if they turned her down. It is minimal for pop music, in pop we expect the theatrics that Michael Jackson, Madonna and Lady Gaga bring, the lights, the screens, the costume changes and the caravan of backup dancers. For Robyn, it is not like that, it is her, two drummers and two programmers underneath a lighting grid. Simple as that. We are there to see her and she knows it, so she goes to work and what hard work it is. Giving everything she's got for 90 mind blowing minutes, Robyn is without a doubt the best solo performer on the planet right now.
Transforming Radio City, a seated venue, into the cities biggest dance club, Robyn made Radio City look like the Limelight nights of the mid-90's with people in the audience in intricate costumes and looking to have the time of their lives. Plowing through her break out Body Talk series of last year and tossing in tracks from her 2005 self titled release, the audience could not stop dancing, clapping and chanting each word. At points, it was as if she did not need the drummers because the audience was shaking the venue with their thunderous clapping in unison and foot stomping. As this went on, Robyn just had to reach out and thank the audience by running up the balconies and into the mezzanine and give as many hugs, high fives and kisses and she could. In a massive venue such as this, she made it feel as intimate as possible. With high energy and high octane, if this woman does not headline Madison Square Garden soon, music as we know it, will fail to ever get to it's highest potential. Robyn will be opening for Katy Perry in the States all summer, but it is Katy Perry and that new class of radio pop favorites that should all be opening for her, Robyn after all, is far superior than any cookie cutter music machine creation you will ever see.
