There is a single moment from Robyn’s triumphant show at Madison Square Garden on Friday, March 8th that is forever seared into my mind. As the Swedish singer reached the first chorus of her 2010 hit “Dancing On My Own” she and her band dropped out and let the crowd take over, and suddenly the packed arena was full of the sound of 20,000 voices singing as one at the top of their lungs. And when it felt like Robyn would jump back in on the second line, she didn’t. The audience had taken over, time seemed to stop, and Robyn embraced herself as if she wished she could embrace every soul in the room.
It was a moment emblematic of a night that felt just as indebted to the people on the floor and in the stands as it did to Robyn and the other talents on stage. The show was far and away the biggest of her current US tour, and the New York audience welcomed her with outstretched arms and open hearts, not to mention a whole lot of dancing. Rather than reach for a big arena show, Robyn took the space and brought it down to her level, turning the Garden into the city’s biggest, hottest nightclub for a few hours with her as the star DJ.
And like a good DJ, Robyn knew how to expertly string one song into another, sending rolling waves of tension and release throughout the room. The seductive opening pair of “Send to Robyn Immediately” and “Honey”, both of last year’s phenomenal comeback album Honey, gave way to the glowstick fist pump of “Indestructible” and set the crowd alight, while an extended outro on “Be Mine!” – featuring dancer Theo Canham-Spence – transitioned perfectly into a sublime rendition of “Because It’s In the Music” that sent the dancefloor into a state of cosmic euphoria.
When the unmistakable first notes of “Dancing On My Own” reverberated through the arena, though, there was no matching the roar that echoed through the audience and when the song came to an end Robyn, knowing better than to let the party die down for even a minute, launched directly into “Missing U”, a dizzying one-two punch followed by a the knockout blow: an ecstatic version of “Call Your Girlfriend” that had everybody in that room dancing like there was no tomorrow.
Two encores later and it was time for Robyn to send everyone back into the New York City cold, and the energy that coursed through that room seem to hover around everyone as they left. So much so that the subway station beneath Madison Square Garden played host to the night’s unofficial after party as hundreds of concert-goers poured down and sang along to hit after hit while they waited for the train. It’s the kind of effect every artist dreams of having, and after putting on one of the best arena shows I’ve personally seen in years, Robyn more than deserved it.
Phots by Eric Townsend
