Robbie Williams played his smallest-ever ticketed show in London last night, where he ran through his debut album in full, as well as performing his upcoming record ‘BRITPOP’ in its entirety. Check out photos and the full setlist below, along with everything that went down.
The solo icon and former Take That member took to the stage at the 500-capacity venue Dingwalls in Camden Town just before 11pm with a mammoth two-hour set, bookending his almost three-decade career. He told many a tale behind the tunes, and revealed how some of his heroes had influenced his new material – with the odd dig at some music biz rivals thrown in.
The phone-free gig had been announced to celebrate the release of the 90s-inspired ‘BRITPOP’, which was initially set to arrive today (Friday October 10). However, the LP was recently delayed until early 2026 due to “scheduling issues”. “We’re all pretending it’s not about Taylor Swift, but it fucking is,” Williams told the crowd.
“Here’s the truth: I want 16 Number One albums. Taylor then decided to put her album out the same weekend as me. I was like, ‘For fuck’s sake! I’ll put it out the next week’, and they were like, ‘She does these other deluxe versions’. I was like, ‘Fucking hell! Can I put it out the week after that then?’ They were like, ‘Oasis might be around then’… ‘For fuck’s sake! Let’s do it in fucking February when no one’s got an album out’.”
He continued: “I was worried about making you all fucking wait, and then I was like, ‘Fuck it! I want a 16th Number One album!’ I’m sorry, but I’m fucking being selfish. How many times in your life do you get to have the most Number One albums the UK’s ever fucking had?”
Before Williams jumped into ‘BRITPOP’, he ran through his 1997 first LP ‘Life Thru A Lens’ front to back. He arrived on stage donning the iconic red Adidas tracksuit jacket he wore at Glastonbury 1995 – a photo from which appears on the cover of his forthcoming full-length. This image was also projected onto the side of Dingwalls as fans queued outside. Some attendees wore the same jacket in homage, while others sported Williams-branded football shirts.
Recommended
“It’s 1997 again – I’d just like to sing my album to you,” Williams said, following the baggy outro of ‘Lazy Days’. He brought up his recent stadium concerts, but explained that he wanted to “perform without the bravado” in the tiny Camden club to usher in his next era. “I want to perform as Robert this evening,” he continued. “And it turns out, Robert’s in pretty good shape!”
He went on to recall being “at the Groucho Club” in London and doing “lots of cocaine”, post-Take That, when he “fucking hated” Gary Barlow. “I was 21, £300,000 in debt – this could’ve happened so differently,” Williams remembered. “But luckily, this happened,” he added, ahead of a spellbinding rendition of ‘Angels’.
After ‘Old Before I Die’, he looked back on his debut single landing at Number Two in the UK charts. “Then every single after that just dropped like a fucking stone,” Williams said. “The album came out and sold 33,000 copies in three months – [I thought,] ‘I am definitely fucked!’” When one fan told the singer that they had purchased a copy, he joked: “Could you have bought another 300,000?”
A tender, acoustic take on ‘One Of God’s Better People’ followed, with Williams saying it was written about “all the people I really liked” who were “the kindest, most compassionate and most empathic people”. He told fans: “None of them had a clue how wonderful they were and still are. This is about them and you.”
Williams soon dropped the sincerity, however. “I told six different women that song was about them,” he quipped. “It’s true! And three of them found out.”
The singer then reflected on how he had “instantly clicked” with his former writing partner and producer Guy Chambers. “It was an unstoppable force,” he said. “This whole album was written in less than two weeks.”
Introducing the juggernaut that is ‘Let Me Entertain You’, Williams explained: “[Chambers’] roof was leaking, he was about to pack in music to become a teacher. It was either the first or second day; I was in his living room, and I was watching something called Rock And Roll Circus – which was a film from the ’60s. It featured The Rolling Stones and The Beatles – all manner of rockers that were current and of the now – and I loved it. I said, ‘I want something like this, Guy’. We went upstairs, and we wrote this song.”
Later, Williams shouted out Oasis, Pulp, Blur and Supergrass who dominated the ’90s era he emerged from, as well as one of the “underrated” bands from that scene, Black Grape: “They had an album out called ‘It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah’. I went into the studio to write a song with that sort of flippancy about drug addiction, I suppose. It was the irony of me walking around town with a Betty Ford T-shirt on – a ‘just been to rehab’ T-shirt. I went in, and wrote a song called ‘Clean’.
The pop star left the stage for a brief interval, returning with a blistering rendition of ‘BRITPOP’ opener and lead single ‘Rocket’. “That song was meant to be played in clubs like this!” he declared. Sadly, there was no guest appearance from Black Sabbath‘s Tony Iommi, who features on the track. Next up, Williams noted the resemblance between his soaring anthem ‘Spies’ and Oasis’ ‘Champagne Supernova’. “Noel, don’t fucking sue me – all the things you’ve nicked!” he fired at his former rival.
Though we have to wait until February for ‘BRITPOP’, Williams did treat fans at Dingwalls by debuting his new lovesick, indie-rock number ‘Pretty Face’ (out today).
Elsewhere, he described a new punk-y cut as “the song I wanted to write when I left Take That”. Williams went on to lament the looming threat of AI taking over to introduce the contemplative ‘Human’. “We’re too fucking human to let that happen,” he said. “We’re too smart. We’ve got hearts, we’ve got souls. That being said, this is a song about our dystopian future…”
The crowd then heard Williams’ bizarre yet infectious dance banger about a stalker of a certain ex-Smiths frontman, ‘Morrissey’, which he penned with his former bandmate Barlow: “Everybody said, ‘You should get back with Gary, write a song about Morrissey’. And do you know what? Eventually I was like, ‘I’m gonna fucking do that!’”
“Morrissey, Morrissey/ He’s talking to me, talking to me,” Williams sang in the shimmering, synth-pop chorus. “Oh, Morrissey, Morrissey/ It’s just you and me, and they don’t need to know/ Come here let me hold you/ Let me hold you for the rest of your life.”
“Yeah, it’s weird as fuck innit?!” the singer admitted after the twinkles of the outro faded out. “Watching all of your faces… it’s like, ‘Robbie, are you gay in this song?!’ Maybe. Maybe I’m gay for Morrissey. Great T-shirt: ‘Gay for Morrissey’.” We also heard the glam rock stomp of another new tune, “written with the legend that is Gaz Coombes – his DNA is all over it”. Williams sang: “You get to talk to Jesus, I get to talk to God.”
Additionally, Williams aired an “art pop” track (“Fuck off, Damon – I can do art pop as well!) along with a song that “came from nowhere” and ended up appearing on ‘BRITPOP’ at the last minute.
Rounding off the night with ‘Pocket Rocket’, the singer reflected: “I knew that this was gonna be an incredibly special gig, and know that these songs have reached their destination. A round of applause for my band, a round of applause for my career, and a round of applause for the good people of Dingwalls.”
Earlier in the set, Williams had shared the news on stage that he would be playing a run of intimate UK shows in early 2026, dubbed the ‘Long ’90s’ tour. The brief stint includes a stop at London’s O2 Brixton Academy on February 8. See the full list of dates below, and find ticket details here.
Robbie Williams’ setlist at Dingwalls was:
‘Life Thru A Lens’:
‘Lazy Days’
‘Life Thru A Lens’
‘Ego A Go Go’
‘Angels’
‘South Of The Border’
‘Old Before I Die’
‘One Of God’s Better People’
‘Let Me Entertain You’
‘Killing Me’
‘Clean’
‘Baby Girl Window’
‘Hello Sir’
‘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’
Robbie Williams’ 2026 UK ‘Long ’90s’ tour dates are:
FEBRUARY
04 – Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow
06 – Liverpool Olympia, Liverpool
08 – O2 Academy Brixton, London
09 – Civic Hall, Wolverhampton
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.