BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN PRODID:adamgibbons/ics METHOD:PUBLISH X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VEVENT UID:1867@mkeshows.com SUMMARY:Robin Trower DTSTAMP:20260801T064411Z DTSTART:20261013T080000Z DESCRIPTION:Even now\, as he reaches his eighth decade\, with a lifetime of accolades and a\nseminal body of music behind him\, Robin Trower is still chasing the biggest high\nhe knows. It always starts the same way\, with a road-scuffed Fender Stratocaster\nand a revved-up Marshall amplifier\, t hose skilful fingers exploring the\nfretboard until a riff sticks and a ne w song ignites. And from the cultural\nflashpoint of Sixties London with P rocol Harum\, through 1974’s stadium-filling\nBridge Of Sighs\, right up t o this year’s acclaimed Come And Find Me\, it’s these\naddictive moments o f creation that have kept the guitarist vital\, relevant and\ncontemporary while his peers trade on past glories.\n\n“Some people say I’m driven\, b ut I think it’s just the love of doing it\,”\nreflects Trower of a multi-m illion-selling solo catalogue fast approaching\nthirty releases (and that’ s before you compute his collaborations with everyone\nfrom Jack Bruce to Bryan Ferry). “I play guitar every day and just through\nmessing around\, ideas happen. I can never feel the songs coming. But all of a\nsudden\, yo u get a sliver of an idea and you think\, ‘Oh\, what’s this…?’”\n\nRight n ow\, Trower stands on the cusp of a whirlwind year that will see him put\n down heavy miles across America and the UK (“I’m chomping at the bit\, bec ause I\nhad to cancel a US tour last year due to an operation”). At the gr and vintage of\n80\, however\, this latest tour represents a mere stretch of the long road\ntravelled. In his mind’s eye\, Trower can still see his Southend-on-Sea childhood\nin the ’50s\, and feel the formative influence of guitar players from across the\nwater. “Rock ‘n’ roll\,” he says\, “was my first love. I’m still drawing on that\nfirst love for Come And Find Me .”\n\nWhen he reaches right back\, Trower’s earliest memory of that rebel movement is\nhearing Elvis sideman Scotty Moore (“He probably had the best sound of any rock\n‘n’ roll player at the time”). Next came a life-changi ng spin of a friend’s\nimported single\, which happened to be B.B. King’s 3 O’ Clock Blues (“I just\nremember hearing the bends and vibrato and thin king\, ‘How the hell is he doing\nthat?’”). Albert King’s Crosscut Saw\, J imi Hendrix’s Machine Gun\, James Brown’s\nLive At The Apollo: all of them informed Trower’s musical personality as he made\nhis first moves in 1959 with R&B hopefuls The Paramounts.\n\nThe big time beckoned in 1967 when T rower joined A Whiter Shade Of Pale\nhitmakers Procol Harum\, and many gui tarists would have clung to that enviable\nposition for life. Trower ackno wledges his good fortune at being at the\nepicentre of that late-’60s yout hquake (“I still think it was the epitome of UK\npopular music and rock ‘n ’ roll”). But Procol’s band dynamic could never contain\nall his ideas\, a nd after five acclaimed albums\, Trower rolled the dice on a solo\ncareer. “It was something I had to do\,” he told Classic Rock. “But it could have \nall gone awry.”\n\nNeedless to say\, the history books have vindicated h im. By 1974\, Trower was a\nmajor star in the land whose music had inspire d him\, with Bridge Of Sighs’ heavy\nsoul achieving Gold US sales and infl uencing future luminaries like Steve\nLukather\, Metallica and countless m ore. “When I hear Bridge Of Sighs\, it’s like\nthe earth under my feet is moving\,” the highly rated Canadian bluesman Philip\nSayce told Guitarist in 2024. “It’s like a chest is heaving.”\n\nTrower himself is still proud of that deathless record (“I recognise the\npotency\, especially with Jimm y Dewar’s fantastic vocals”). Yet the veteran\ndoesn’t dine out on Bridge Of Sighs – or his other hit albums of the late-’70s\nlike For Earth Below\ , Long Misty Days and In City Dreams – preferring to march\never onward. S tick a pin in his catalogue over the past decade alone and you’ll\nfind pr ojects from 2020’s United State Of Mind supergroup alongside Maxi Priest\n to the pairing with New York vocalist Sari Schorr on 2023’s Joyful Sky. “S he’s\ndynamite\,” he says of the latter\, “and I’ll Be Moving On is a part icular\nfavourite of mine from that album.”\n\nTracked last year during fo ur separate sessions at Newbury’s Studio 91 (the\nsetting for all Trower’s recent solo albums)\, the genesis of Come And Find Me\nspeaks volumes abo ut the guitarist’s late-period momentum and high standards.\n“Here’s the t hing\, I had enough material for two albums\,” he reflects. “I must\nhave recorded 18 songs\, all finished. I honed that down to ten songs\, but whe n I\nlistened back to the album again a few months later\, it didn’t quite hang\ntogether. So I recorded some new songs\, knocked others off the pre vious running\norder. A lot of work went into Come And Find Me – but it re ally does hang\ntogether well now.”\n\nNever one to let interviewers too d eep into his headspace\, Trower once explained\nthat each new album is a s napshot of his situation and worldview at that moment.\nAs such\, Come And Find Me is the best way to know the guitarist better in 2025\,\nand this new record is clearly not the work of a lofty rock star but an engaged\npa rticipant in the real world\, with relatable loves\, hates\, hopes and fea rs.\n“Musically\, there’s a strong R&B flavour behind it\, but it’s obviou sly rock ‘n’\nroll\,” he explains. “Lyrically\, I think the world has beco me a lot darker in the\nlast ten or twenty years. But there’s always hope. There’s more good people in\nthe world than there are bad.”\n\nAlways a s ociable musician and generous collaborator\, Trower enlisted his\ntrusted studio band for Come And Find Me. Drummer Chris Taggart once again\ndrives these powerful songs\, with returning US bassist Glenn Letsch providing\n low end on two tracks (Trower played the remainder). Long-standing vocalis t\nRichard Watts brilliantly interprets the guitarist’s highly personal ly ric\nsheets\, while guest singer Jess Hayes is a head-turning addition for Tangled\nLove’s tough\, choppy soul. For the fairydust\, Trower turned to Studio 91’s owner\nSam Winfield for the engineering and final mix – but t he guitarist was\nintimately involved with every element. “For me\, workin g on a new song is a\n24-hour job\,” he explains. “It’s always on my mind. I’ll wake up in the middle\nof the night thinking about it.”\n\nLikewise\ , the Come And Find Me tracks will take up residence in your head. A\nLitt le Bit Of Freedom starts in combative style with a blast of wah guitar and a\nbold first line (‘I don’t need no-one to think for me’). “I had a stro ng sense\nthat red tape and rules are really constricting things in the wo rld\,” says\nTrower. “Too much red tape\, not enough freedom to think – it ’s got to where you\nfeel straitjacketed.”\n\nTrower’s ambivalent stance t o the times is also writ large on cuts like the\ntremolo shudder of The Fu ture Starts Right Here (“We’re becoming so tribal and\ntaking sides\, like \, ‘Oh\, you’re not with me – I must hate you’”) and the\nstinging Without A Trace. “That song is about all the lies in politics\, mostly\,\nand on social media. You know\, this absolute out-and-out lying\, to try and\ninf luence people.”\n\nElsewhere\, the guitarist’s famed musicianship takes ce ntre stage. Try the\nglowering angst and molten solo of Take This Hurt Awa y (“That song actually\nstarted when I thought to myself one day\, ‘I wond er what I would come up with if\nthey asked me to write a song for a James Bond film…’”). Or spin the swampy One\nGo Round\, which lived up to the ‘ seize-the-day’ lyric with its rapid birth in\nthe studio. “That was almost an instant finished thing. It was like a hot knife\nthrough butter. All t he lead work was improvised\, and it’s exactly where I live.\nThe lyrical meaning is pretty obvious. You only get one go round\, so try and\nmake th e most of it.”\n\nAs the album unfolds\, Trower reminds us of his ability to write a cliché-free\nlove song\, via the hard-driving I Would Lose My M ind\, the glistening smoulder of\nCapture The Life Begun and the push/pull groove of I Fly Straight To You.\n“That’s pretty basic stuff\, isn’t it?” he smiles of the latter. “A guy is mad\nabout a girl. It’s almost like a Beatles lyric\, like\, ‘I want to hold your\nhand…’”\n\nCome And Find Me i s a grand statement that demands a big finish\, and Trower duly\nreserves a very special guitar solo for the closing Time Stood Still\, his\nemotive string bends and shivers of vibrato matching a hypnotic vocal that finds\ ntwo lovers stopping the clocks in each other’s arms. “I had that complete piece\nbefore I started on the lyric\,” he says. “I think it’s beautiful. It’s a lovely\nfeeling to go out on.”\n\nFiery\, thoughtful and fuelled b y real human emotion in a time of\nmachine-generated music\, Come And Find Me is hardly the work of a rock icon\nresting on his laurels. On the cont rary: keenly aware of passing time\, Robin\nTrower has made it his late-pe riod mission to capture as many shards of magic as\npossible. “In one way\ , I can’t believe it\, that I’m still going at 80\,” he says.\n“It’s kind of scary. You know that you’re way down the road\, and you could hit a\nbr ick wall at any time. But I still love doing this. For me\, there’s nothin g\nmore rewarding than working on a new song…” URL:https://mkeshows.com/event/robin-trower LOCATION:The Pabst Theater - 144 E Wells St Milwaukee STATUS:CONFIRMED CATEGORIES:Rock,All Ages X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

Even now, as he reaches his eighth decade, with a lifetime of accolades and a seminal body of music behind him, Robin Trower is still chasing the biggest high he knows. It always starts the s ame way, with a road-scuffed Fender Stratocaster and a revved-up Marshall amplifier, those skilful fingers exploring the fretboard until a riff stic ks and a new song ignites. And from the cultural flashpoint of Sixties Lon don with Procol Harum, through 1974’s stadium-filling Bridge Of Sighs, rig ht up to this year’s acclaimed Come And Find Me, it’s these addictive mome nts of creation that have kept the guitarist vital, relevant and contempor ary while his peers trade on past glories.

“Some people say I’m driv en, but I think it’s just the love of doing it,” reflects Trower of a mult i-million-selling solo catalogue fast approaching thirty releases (and tha t’s before you compute his collaborations with everyone from Jack Bruce to Bryan Ferry). “I play guitar every day and just through messing around, i deas happen. I can never feel the songs coming. But all of a sudden, you g et a sliver of an idea and you think, ‘Oh, what’s this…?’”

Right now , Trower stands on the cusp of a whirlwind year that will see him put down heavy miles across America and the UK (“I’m chomping at the bit, because I had to cancel a US tour last year due to an operation”). At the grand vi ntage of 80, however, this latest tour represents a mere stretch of the lo ng road travelled. In his mind’s eye, Trower can still see his Southend-on -Sea childhood in the ’50s, and feel the formative influence of guitar pla yers from across the water. “Rock ‘n’ roll,” he says, “was my first love. I’m still drawing on that first love for Come And Find Me.”

When he reaches right back, Trower’s earliest memory of that rebel movement is hea ring Elvis sideman Scotty Moore (“He probably had the best sound of any ro ck ‘n’ roll player at the time”). Next came a life-changing spin of a frie nd’s imported single, which happened to be B.B. King’s 3 O’ Clock Blues (“ I just remember hearing the bends and vibrato and thinking, ‘How the hell is he doing that?’”). Albert King’s Crosscut Saw, Jimi Hendrix’s Machine G un, James Brown’s Live At The Apollo: all of them informed Trower’s musica l personality as he made his first moves in 1959 with R&B hopefuls The Paramounts.

The big time beckoned in 1967 when Trower joined A Whit er Shade Of Pale hitmakers Procol Harum, and many guitarists would have cl ung to that enviable position for life. Trower acknowledges his good fortu ne at being at the epicentre of that late-’60s youthquake (“I still think it was the epitome of UK popular music and rock ‘n’ roll”). But Procol’s b and dynamic could never contain all his ideas, and after five acclaimed al bums, Trower rolled the dice on a solo career. “It was something I had to do,” he told Classic Rock. “But it could have all gone awry.”

Needle ss to say, the history books have vindicated him. By 1974, Trower was a ma jor star in the land whose music had inspired him, with Bridge Of Sighs’ h eavy soul achieving Gold US sales and influencing future luminaries like S teve Lukather, Metallica and countless more. “When I hear Bridge Of Sighs, it’s like the earth under my feet is moving,” the highly rated Canadian b luesman Philip Sayce told Guitarist in 2024. “It’s like a chest is heaving .”

Trower himself is still proud of that deathless record (“I recogn ise the potency, especially with Jimmy Dewar’s fantastic vocals”). Yet the veteran doesn’t dine out on Bridge Of Sighs – or his other hit albums of the late-’70s like For Earth Below, Long Misty Days and In City Dreams – p referring to march ever onward. Stick a pin in his catalogue over the past decade alone and you’ll find projects from 2020’s United State Of Mind su pergroup alongside Maxi Priest to the pairing with New York vocalist Sari Schorr on 2023’s Joyful Sky. “She’s dynamite,” he says of the latter, “and I’ll Be Moving On is a particular favourite of mine from that album.”

Tracked last year during four separate sessions at Newbury’s Studio 91 (the setting for all Trower’s recent solo albums), the genesis of Come And Find Me speaks volumes about the guitarist’s late-period momentum and hig h standards. “Here’s the thing, I had enough material for two albums,” he reflects. “I must have recorded 18 songs, all finished. I honed that down to ten songs, but when I listened back to the album again a few months lat er, it didn’t quite hang together. So I recorded some new songs, knocked o thers off the previous running order. A lot of work went into Come And Fin d Me – but it really does hang together well now.”

Never one to let interviewers too deep into his headspace, Trower once explained that each new album is a snapshot of his situation and worldview at that moment. As such, Come And Find Me is the best way to know the guitarist better in 202 5, and this new record is clearly not the work of a lofty rock star but an engaged participant in the real world, with relatable loves, hates, hopes and fears. “Musically, there’s a strong R&B flavour behind it, but it ’s obviously rock ‘n’ roll,” he explains. “Lyrically, I think the world ha s become a lot darker in the last ten or twenty years. But there’s always hope. There’s more good people in the world than there are bad.”

Alw ays a sociable musician and generous collaborator, Trower enlisted his tru sted studio band for Come And Find Me. Drummer Chris Taggart once again dr ives these powerful songs, with returning US bassist Glenn Letsch providin g low end on two tracks (Trower played the remainder). Long-standing vocal ist Richard Watts brilliantly interprets the guitarist’s highly personal l yric sheets, while guest singer Jess Hayes is a head-turning addition for Tangled Love’s tough, choppy soul. For the fairydust, Trower turned to Stu dio 91’s owner Sam Winfield for the engineering and final mix – but the gu itarist was intimately involved with every element. “For me, working on a new song is a 24-hour job,” he explains. “It’s always on my mind. I’ll wak e up in the middle of the night thinking about it.”

Likewise, the Co me And Find Me tracks will take up residence in your head. A Little Bit Of Freedom starts in combative style with a blast of wah guitar and a bold f irst line (‘I don’t need no-one to think for me’). “I had a strong sense t hat red tape and rules are really constricting things in the world,” says Trower. “Too much red tape, not enough freedom to think – it’s got to wher e you feel straitjacketed.”

Trower’s ambivalent stance to the times is also writ large on cuts like the tremolo shudder of The Future Starts R ight Here (“We’re becoming so tribal and taking sides, like, ‘Oh, you’re n ot with me – I must hate you’”) and the stinging Without A Trace. “That so ng is about all the lies in politics, mostly, and on social media. You kno w, this absolute out-and-out lying, to try and influence people.”

El sewhere, the guitarist’s famed musicianship takes centre stage. Try the gl owering angst and molten solo of Take This Hurt Away (“That song actually started when I thought to myself one day, ‘I wonder what I would come up w ith if they asked me to write a song for a James Bond film…’”). Or spin th e swampy One Go Round, which lived up to the ‘seize-the-day’ lyric with it s rapid birth in the studio. “That was almost an instant finished thing. I t was like a hot knife through butter. All the lead work was improvised, a nd it’s exactly where I live. The lyrical meaning is pretty obvious. You o nly get one go round, so try and make the most of it.”

As the album unfolds, Trower reminds us of his ability to write a cliché-free love song , via the hard-driving I Would Lose My Mind, the glistening smoulder of Ca pture The Life Begun and the push/pull groove of I Fly Straight To You. “T hat’s pretty basic stuff, isn’t it?” he smiles of the latter. “A guy is ma d about a girl. It’s almost like a Beatles lyric, like, ‘I want to hold yo ur hand…’”

Come And Find Me is a grand statement that demands a big finish, and Trower duly reserves a very special guitar solo for the closin g Time Stood Still, his emotive string bends and shivers of vibrato matchi ng a hypnotic vocal that finds two lovers stopping the clocks in each othe r’s arms. “I had that complete piece before I started on the lyric,” he sa ys. “I think it’s beautiful. It’s a lovely feeling to go out on.”

Fi ery, thoughtful and fuelled by real human emotion in a time of machine-gen erated music, Come And Find Me is hardly the work of a rock icon resting o n his laurels. On the contrary: keenly aware of passing time, Robin Trower has made it his late-period mission to capture as many shards of magic as possible. “In one way, I can’t believe it, that I’m still going at 80,” h e says. “It’s kind of scary. You know that you’re way down the road, and y ou could hit a brick wall at any time. But I still love doing this. For me , there’s nothing more rewarding than working on a new song…”

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