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Live Recordings: Flanders 1998

In the late seventies Tom Robinson briefly conquered half the civilised world. As Britain's punk rockers spat and kicked their way onto the global stage, a second generation of songsters followed in their slipstream - the likes of Nick Lowe, Ian Dury, Elvis Costello and Tom Robinson. They weren't dripping with chains or bristling with safety pins. They had clean hair and ate their greens. But they too had axes to grind, and shared much of Punk's rage against social injustice: movements like Rock Against Racism knew no musical boundaries. Tom Robinson himself was famously homosexual. 'Sing if you're glad to be gay' he bawled - and England's stiff upper lip quivered.

Today he has an attractive wife, a couple of kids (and wryly called his last album "Having It Both Ways")... But for two decades the other great love of his life seems to have been the flat fields and bittersweet history of Flanders. 'Still Loving You' (1986) relates tales of heartbreak in Old Antwerp, drug smugglers in Bruges and the lowlife of Brussels. A world of frozen canals, De Koninck beer, handsome men and wicked women. To this day, Robinson remains infatuated with this place and its people. And our people - long after New Wave and Cold Wave, Britpop and Grunge have been and gone elsewhere - remain equally keen on Tom Robinson.

And that's why Robinson throws free parties in Belgium for his friends and fans across Europe every year. That's why on CD ONE you'll hear kids, wrinklies and thirtysomethings in their hundreds - French, Dutch, German and even English speakers among them - rubbing shoulders and singing along.

In fact you should take a listen right now - and hear for yourself

Adapted from original
sleevenotes in Dutch by
MARNIX PEETERS
Antwerp 1999