I saw Robbie Williams at the North East's newest music festival, and it has potential to be huge for the region - here's why
The new festival has already shown it can draw big names, but what is the experience like as an attendee?
Robbie Williams kicked off what could become a new era for the North East’s festival scene with a breathtaking headline set in Newcastle on Wednesday night.
The former Take That and acclaimed solo artist headed to the region for the first time in over a decade for the opening day of Come Together Festival.
Taking place on the Town Moor, August 2025 marks the first edition of the event - one which has taken over in a long line of music festivals which have tried to stake their claim as hosts of a major event on the green space.
Most recently, this came in the form of This Is Tomorrow Festival which welcomed Sam Fender, Gerry Cinnamon and Dermot Kennedy to its Town Moor setup.
The setup this year seemed vastly improved. Whereas the previous event had one main stage as well as another smaller stage tucked away in the corner of the site, Come Together sees three stages with two smaller setups flanking a main stage which wouldn’t look out of place at most major UK events.
Lovers of the Town Moor needn’t have worried about the space taken up by the festival, with the full event taking place across just a slightly larger space than the Hoppings Fair which heads to the space each summer.
However, the site wasn’t without its issues by the end of the night. Multiple emergency exit points around the arena space led many fans to believe they would be able to leave the venue quickly at the end of the night, only to discover every fan would need to leave through the same point they came in.
This resulted in busy (albeit safe) bottlemecks upon the exit through a dark Exhibition Park as fans looked to return to the city centre.
Despite the proximity of each stage, I experienced minimal sound issues with sets carrying over to the next stage. This is thanks to a schedule which sees the second and third stages in use during changeovers in equipment on the main stage, meaning fans can hop between stages with no down-time if they want to.
Most of the secondary stages gave a platform to local acts including South Tyneside singer songwriter Sonny Tennet who we caught early in the evening - as well as Newcastle based Park View, who were a personal highlight of the day.
Over on the main stage, a solid mix of local and touring acts warmed up the 40,000 strong crowd for Robbie Williams, and while the vast majority of tickets were sold after the event was pushed back from June earlier this year, there was no feeling of any performance areas being too busy.
We arrived in time to see the Lottery Winners, who have been supporting Williams on his summer dates across the UK and Europe this summer before a bit of North East representation in Newcastle-born singer-songwriter Andrew Cushin and South Tyneside’s former Little Mix star Perrie, who included a good sprinkling of her former group’s work alongside her new solo material.
It was a welcome return to the region for Perrie, who described the show as “coming home” before talking about her “nostalgic memories of Little Mix.
The Town Moor was then transported back to 2005 for the sub-headliner set, which saw festival staple Kaiser Chiefs take to the main stage for a highly energetic hour as they performed their debut album ‘Employment’ to mark the record’s 20th anniversary.
With the almost capacity crowd well warmed by festival ready singalongs I Predict A Riot and Ruby, the Leeds group made way for Robbie Williams in his first North East show for over ten years.
I feel like I need to break the fourth wall with a caveat here - I love Williams as a performer. His 2003 Knebworth shows make up my favourite love album of all time, so it’s fair to say hopes were high.
His series of shows this year lean into what is best about the Stoke-born star. His raw charisma and stage presence remain despite his self- deprecating jokes about how he looks now compared to a 17 year old version of himself, who he spoke to via AI clips on big screens on either side of the stage.
Kicking off his stage show with Let Me Entertain You was always going to be a positive start before Williams described his goal to become the “ultimate performer” before breaking into a mashup of Blur’s Song 2, The White Stripe’s Seven Nation Army and Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer.
This was one of a handful of covers he would perform over the course of the night, with others including The From New York, New York, an impromptu rendition of Fog On The Tyne and My Way, which acted as the full circle culmination of Williams’ 2024 film Better Man.
Other heartfelt moments came in the form of a return to the stage from Perrie, who stayed on the site to perform Relight My Fire and a hugely powerful rendition of Strong.
The majority of fans will be very happy with the stacked setlist, with the caveat that Come Undone, the emotional centrepiece of his 2003 album Escapology, was omitted. This is something the star made reference to early in the set as he explained he couldn’t please everyone with the track listing.
The majority of other major singles were included however, including Rock DJ which was given the production from the song’s inclusion in the Better Man film, combined with the now iconic Regent Street scene on a big screen to the back of the stage.
This exclusion aside, the Town Moor space gave Williams a chance to show North East crowds what they have been missing for the best part of a decade. Pure showmanship. It has been a long time coming, but the return of Britain’s self proclaimed ‘son’ lived up to the hype - no more so than during one of the strongest encores I’ve seen in a long time, constsiting of a brilliant sounding one-two punch of Feel and Angels.
With a couple of tweaks to the end of the evening, Williams and his supporting acts throughout the day may have also heralded in a new era for festivals in the North East. If this is how Come Together Festival kicked off, the future is looking bright.
The second day of Come Together Festival will take place on Friday, August 22 with sets from Courteeners, The Cribs and more before a headline slot from Kings Of Leon.