Wednesday 31st of July 2024Tom Robinson Band

Tom Robinson enjoyed brief notoriety in late 70s Britain – a time of punk rock, political unrest and economic gloom – as a bandleader and activist.
The Tom Robinson Band (TRB) became known for the hit single 2-4-6-8 Motorway, their vocal support of Rock Against Racism and for the anthem Sing If You’re Glad To Be Gay, which reached the Top Twenty despite a ban by BBC Radio 1. Other hits included Don’t Take No For An Answer, Up Against The Wall and Too Good To Be True while TRB’s debut album Power In The Darkness went gold in the UK & Japan. As a solo artist Tom had further success in 1983 with War Baby and Atmospherics: Listen To The Radio, and co-wrote songs with Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Dan Hartman and Manu Katché.

As a radio presenter, Tom has hosted programmes on all eight of the BBC‘s national radio stations over the last 30 years, and won two Gold Sony Academy Radio Awards. He served as a member of the Ivor Novello Awards committee for ten years, is a recipient of a BASCA Gold Badge Award, and was awarded a fellowship of LIPA in 2016, in recognition of his support for new music through BBC Introducing.

In 2015 Tom’s crowdfunded studio album Only The Now included guest appearances by Billy Bragg, John Grant, Martin Carthy, Nadine Shah, Sir Ian McKellan, TV Smith, Nitin Sawhney and Lisa Knapp and was a 6 Music album of the day.

The present Tom Robinson Band has been together for 20 years. Alongside Robinson on bass, it features Faithless drummer Andy Treacey, guitarist Adam Phillips from the Richard Ashcroft Band, keyboard virtuoso Jim Simmons and Northern soul singer Lee Forsyth Griffiths on acoustic guitar. In recent years they’ve built a reputation for storming festival sets in the UK, Japan, Belgium and Germany – and marked Tom’s 70th birthday (two years late because of Covid) with a sold-out show at Shepherds Bush Empire in May 2022.