Robbie Williams is ready to treat fans at The Halls in Wolverhampton to a night to remember
The Civic Hall has enjoyed some great moments over its rich history. Monday night is likely to be one of them.
Robbie Williams is used to playing stadiums. On Monday night he drops into Wolverhampton as part of a small and intimate Long 90s tour.
He will perform his debut solo number-one album Life Thru A Lens, featuring hits such as Angels and Let Me Entertain You. In addition, Robbie will perform his latest project, Britpop, in full.
The signs are that those lucky enough to get tickets for the date at The Halls in Wolverhampton. He has received rave reviews so far, with dates in Glasgow. Liverpool and London leading up to tonight’s finale.
After more than three decades in entertainment, Robbie Williams says he ready to celebrate his music, both past and present.
His new album, Britpop, is his 16th number one, breaking the previous record set by the Beatles.
The Staffordshire singer says he is taking a moment to mark his achievement.
He spoke to the BBC about the excitement he has felt abut getting back on the road.
"I think as British people we're very good at piercing the balloon of our own success and undercutting it and devaluing ourselves," he said. "It's what we do best. In many ways it's why we're great.
"But with this one, I really want to let it sink in and I really want to stand in the middle of it and go, 'OK, success, do your thing to me'."
The tour will take in smaller venues, the kind he would have played at the start of his solo stardom.
In an interview on BBC News, the 51-year-old says Britpop is the album he wanted to make when he first left Take That and it includes input from his former bandmate Gary Barlow.
Looking back to the 1990s, he recalls: "I was going through my own mental illness and anything good that's happening to somebody that is in the throes of depression... they can't experience joy and there were lots of incredible things happening and I couldn't experience joy from any of it.
"But now I look back at it and think, what a decade. The last great decade for popular culture because everything since then has become quite vanilla.
"You don't know 2007 from 2023, but you know the '50s, you know the '60s, you know the '70s you know the '80s and you know the '90s and so I look back and with a wry smile and say that the '90s was an amazing time to have a bad time."
Williams says he feels much happier being back in the UK, with a more settled life after the frenzy of his early fame.
He told BBC News: "I think that everybody knows, because we've seen it countless times, that if you are on the crest of a wave, the media comes to bring you down and attack you and malign you at every opportunity they can. And that is heavy and brings its own problems.
"But that was then, I'm in a different place now," he continues. "I'm left alone just to put my songs out and be married.
"There isn't anybody at my door trying to get pictures of me 24 hours a day or trying to pop microphones and bug my house or trying to hack my phone. There isn't any of that stuff that's happening anymore. This is what I thought it would be like when I set out on my journey when I was 16, I'm having an amazing time.
"I get way too invested in finding the negative things, everybody does. I wonder if there's something wired in us where we go, ‘let's find the problem, let's find a threat and then we'll negate the threat’."
Take That continues to be active, with Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald set for a big Circus Life tour that includes dates at Coventry Building Society Arena.
Williams joined the band for one tour and remains on good terms with them, so it is possible he may come back again one day.
He said he enjoyed a recent Netflix documentary that examined the group's success, adding that he had "overwhelming feeling of how much I love the boys".
As for his future ambitions? He told the BBC: "I want to build hotels with my own venues in and then I want to play my own hotels. I want to do a university of entertainment and I've got the syllabus in my mind and it would be a great revenge on education for somebody that left school with nothing higher than a D to go in and revolutionise education."
Setlist
Robbie will play his latest album Britpop in full, as listed below, along with tracks from Life Thru A Lens, including hits such as Angels, Old Before I Die, and Let Me Entertain You.
BRITPOP:
Rocket
Spies
Pretty Face
Bite Your Tongue
Cocky
All My Life
Human
Morrissey
You
It’s OK Until The Drugs Stop Working
Pocket Rocket
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