Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox

Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh - 16/12/24 

 Robert Fripp (guitar),Toyah Willcox (vocals) and band. 

 Edinburgh partied like it was Christmas at the Queen’s Hall, entertained and enchanted on a damp Monday night by the distinctly odd but endearing couple that is experimental guitar boffin Robert Fripp and post-punk singer-songwriter Toyah Willcox, as they rehearsed the bouncier aspects of their adjacent but often un-parallel musical paths. 

 The occasion was the start of a short five concert tour which rightly commenced in Scotland’s capital city before heading back down to Sunderland, Bath, London (Indigo at the 02) and Wolverhampton. Judging by the greying demographic, there are plenty of Dunediners still keen to relive their dissolute youth, including an intriguing sprinkling of otherwise subdued classical regulars and other serious-looking men stroking their beards (imaginary and otherwise) to assure anyone sitting nearby that it was Fripp revery rather than seasonal revelry which they mostly wished to be found guilty of. 

 Robert Fripp is, of course, the studiously spiky and cerebral godfather of art rock giants King Crimson. They are best known for varying styles of challenging music drawing on influences ranging from industrial and new wave to gamelan, all adorned with odd time signatures and complex layers of sound. He has also spent time teaching guitar techniques involving his ‘new standard tuning’, based around fifths and the chromatic circle, and creating atmospheric soundscapes with the guitar and multiple electronic effects (‘Frippertronics’). 

 For much of his career, Fripp has literally avoided the limelight. He often sits be-stooled at the side of the action, lurking in the shadows, immersed in technology, and elaborately picking his instrument in a way that would be more familiar to an Eastern European folk musician than a typical Western rock god. Tonight he shared centre stage with his gloriously and glitteringly arrayed wife, albeit in a trademark waistcoat and tie (matched by male members of  the backing band) and wearing large monitor earphones.     

 At first, second and subsequent sight, Toyah Willcox is as un-Fripplike as one could possibly imagine. The rebel child of the punk and new wave era, she is also a queen of glam, and proved extrovertly articulate between soaring vocals on a range of her own songs, plus family favourites and ones on which her husband of 37 years had previously left his indelible mark. Perhaps chief among the latter was the title track of David Bowie’s Heroes album, released by RCA in 1977 as the second in his Berlin trilogy, following Low and preceding Lodger. For many, me included, hearing this was the standout moment of the evening, and fittingly a concluding one.  

 Ahead of that, the pair stormed through a catalogue of classic rock tunes, a designation that Fripp probably holds in almost as much disdain as the geriatric ‘progressive rock’ label still used to pigeonhole him. In addition to Toyah’s own hits, ‘It’s A Mystery’ and ‘I Want To Be’ Free, other nostalgic gems in the 100-minute set included ‘Rebel Yell’, ‘Welcome To The Jungle’, ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way’ and ‘Paranoid’. These were all given fresh life by the exuberant diva and a typically taut and punchy band consisting of two additional guitarists, bassist, drummer, and keyboard player. The whole was projected joyously through a high-quality, well-balanced sound system. The cymbals on the drum kit were subtly muted. Fripp hates them stealing his accents.   

 Although billed as a Christmas Show, following the couple’s madcap ‘Sunday Lunch’ YouTube videos launched during lockdown, the only musical concession to the season was a tongue-in-cheek but also oddly sincere version of Slade’s ubiquitous and dreadful ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’. Throughout the show Toyah enjoyed playfully ribbing Robert, at one point designating him ‘Progosaurus Rex’. While music has the capacity to elevate and stretch us, and while both Fripp and Willcox can do that too, it is also allowed to be downright fun. That was what this evening was all about, and it went down a storm. Those who had any hair left duly let it down.