Robyn Hitchcock - Robyn Hitchcock Plays 1967 The Chapel San Francisco CA USA 2025 | Albums That Should Exist

 Let years Robyn covers a classic years music featuring work by  The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Kinks, The Doors, Country Joe and The Fish,  Love, Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, The Velvet Underground and back to the Beatles to finish with a Day In The Life a la Neil Young!

Robyn Hitchcock - Robyn Hitchcock Plays 1967, The Chapel, San Francisco, CA, 5-22-2025

Paul says: Robyn Hitchcock has always been fascinated by the rock music of the 1960s, even though he was born too late to be part of the music scene then. (His first band was formed in 1976.) In 2024, he released a studio album consisting entirely of covers of songs from the year 1967, called "1967: Vacations in the Past." That was a companion to a book he wrote, called "1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left." I just recently discovered that in May 2025, he performed a unique concert which consisted entirely of cover songs from 1967. So here it is.

I first discovered this concert about a week ago (as I write this in January 2026). When I gave it a listen, my initial thought was that it wasn't worthy of being posted here, due to sound quality issues. The recording I found was an audience bootleg with mere middling sound quality. But it's fortunate I discovered this when I did, and not earlier, because in recent weeks I've learned some audio editing techniques to improve problematic recordings like this one. 

The first thing I did was use MVSEP to separate the vocals from the instruments. Then I ran just the vocals through MVSEP's "reverb removal" feature. I've discovered that doesn't do much to the instruments, but it can really improve the vocals if they're separated out first. That got rid of a lot of echo and murkiness on the vocals. But the sound of his talking between songs was still problematic. So I additionally ran all of those tracks through Adobe's vocal enhancer. It only works on talking, not singing, but it does wonders it enhancing vocal clarity.

Doing all that took a lot of work. But I think it made a big difference. This recording still has some issues, but I think it sounds pretty close to a soundboard-level bootleg now. 

Note that the previous year, Hitchcock did a special concert at the same venue, which consisted entirely of covers of Syd Barrett songs. I've posted that here as well. He made a comment in this concert that he's already thinking about doing another theme type show in 2026. Let's hope this becomes a new yearly tradition for him.

Curiously, even though he played virtually all 1967 songs, there wasn't much overlap with the songs from his "1967: Vacations in the Past" album. The only songs from that one were "Waterloo Sunset," "See Emily Play," "No Face, No Name, No Number," and "A Day in the Life." And by the way, a couple of the songs were actually first released in 1966: "Sunshine Superman" and "Rain." And "Only a Northern Song" by the Beatles wasn't released until 1969. But I could see why he included it, because it actually was recorded by the Beatles in February 1967. It was considered for inclusion on their "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album but didn't make the cut, so it didn't come out until the "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack.

Hitchcock was supported by a small band, with a few guests coming and going. The last song, "A Day in the Life," sounds a bit different because he got off the stage and performed it in the middle of the audience, with the crowd singing along.  

This album is an hour and 33 minutes long. 

01 Baby, You're a Rich Man 
02 Only a Northern Song
03 talk 
04 Astronomy Domine 
05 Lucifer Sam
06 talk
07 See Emily 
08 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Waterloo Sunset 
10 talk 
11 Soul Kitchen 
15 talk 
12 The Crystal Ship
13 No Face, No Name, No Number
14 Andmoreagain 
19 talk 
16 Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine - Sunshine Superman 
17 talk
18 Electricity 
20 Zig Zag Wanderer 
21 talk 
22 I'm Waiting for the Man 
23 The End 
24 talk 
25 I Am the Walrus 
26 talk 
27 Rain 
28 talk 
29 A Day in the Life 
30 talk