Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Toyah has never lost her sense of fun and style, and her husband, the legendary Robert Fripp, exudes such an air of gentlemanly grace that to be in their presence can often feel measurably overwhelming.

For to watch two of Britain’s most experienced performers on stage can lead to the listener being comforted and dominated in the same breath; and when they are together on the back of their hugely successful Sunday Lunch show online that sartorial elegance on stage for a Liverpool crowd is one that is to be acknowledged as being performed by a king and queen of Prog and Punk.

For the Philharmonic Hall crowd, the Monday night expression was one perhaps arguably that will go down in the individual memory box as one of the most endearing, and fun gigs of the last few years. Not a moment lost in search of whimsy when recollection and joy can be the order of the day, sizzling hot, served at a roasting temperature, and with all the ceremony you would expect.

For those unsure or unaware of the sentiment behind the gig, very much the King of the Crimson Prog stalwarts and the queen of Birmingham, this was a night of homage to all they themselves have found to be beautiful, the rhythm of two lives anchored by collaboration, of performing with some of the all-time greats, and the occasional track which gave Toyah her immense start and career; and homage it was in a way that cool, dramatic, fierce, haunting…scintillating and as colourful as could be expected.

Spread across two sets, Toyah, Robert, and the immense band, took the audience through tracks as wonderfully rock as they were booming with anticipation and respect. This was intimacy on a large scale, it was insight into the depth of knowledge that the pair have when music and interpretation is the calling card of an enjoyable evening.

As tracks such as Lenny Kravitz’s Are You Gonna Go My Way, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, a splendid reading of Gloria Jones’ Tainted Love, unbelievable versions of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir and Metallica’s Enter Sandman, as well as a surprising, but absolutely sublime performance of Liverpool’s Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax, and Toyah’s own Thunder In The Mountains, It’s A Mystery, I Want To Be Free, all played out to an appreciative crowd, so colour was to be found in the darkest of times; for as Toyah insists “that performers have a responsibility to lift people’s spirits in hard times” and the response is one that is dedicated to proving the woman from Kings Heath absolutely and profoundly right.

Despite the coming of autumn, the dark evenings and the cold intrusion into our lives, this was a gig firmly delivered in the style of a hot summer’s night made glorious by Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp with an outpouring of energy and brilliance.

Ian D. Hall