After three years cooped up in their kitchen releasing shabby yet loveable cover versions, it's easy to forget that Toyah and Robert Fripp are professional musicians, with an audience to entertain and a crust to earn. So we hope you'll forgive us for only just noticing that the pair performed a rather epic version of Led Zeppelin's classic Kashmir during their set at Fairport Convention's annual Cropredy festival earlier this month.
It was a set that relied heavily on the songs that have turned the King Crimson man and his post-punk bride into viral celebrities, with just a trio of Toyah originals – Thunder In The Mountains, It's A Mystery and I Want To Be Free – finding their way onto the setlist.
Elsewhere, it was wall-to-wall bangers, including Black Sabbath's Paranoid, Metallica's Enter Sandman, Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine, Cream's Sunshine Of You Love, and a surprisingly majestic version of Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti masterpiece.
"We're immensely proud of this next song," says Toyah, breathlessly introducing the song. "It's by someone we love to the moon and back. I'm not going to say any more, but my god the Midlands has produced some brilliant musicians."
What follows is undeniably powerful, with a full band adding the requisite amount of heft to a performance that's a great deal more authoritative than what we've come to expect from the couple's Sunday Lunch videos. And there's a bonus.
"We are so proud," says Toyah, still breathless, as the song ends, "to have Mr Robert Plant watching from the audience tonight."
"I was there," says YouTuber ganazby, commenting on the video. "Robert Plant was standing right behind me, near the bar, nodding his approval. It was an incredible moment." His comment, naturally enough, was greeted by a chorus of naysayers and non-believers, but that's the internet for you.
Toyah and Robert Fripp's Sunday Lunch Rock Party tour kicks off at Durham Castle on September 2. Full dates below.
Robert & Toyah Sunday Lunch Rock Party 2023 Tour dates
Sep 02: Durham Castle
Sep 30: Wimborne Tivoli
Oct 01: Cheltenham Town Hall
Oct 07: Harrogate Town Hall
Oct 08: Whitley Bay Town House
Oct 09: Manchester Salford Lowery
Oct 14: Worthing Assembly Hall
Oct 16: Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
Oct 19: Bury St Edmunds Apex
Oct 20: Basingstoke Anvil
Oct 21: London Shepherd's Bush Empire
Oct 25: Buxton Opera House
Oct 26: Shrewsbury Theatre Severn
Oct 28: Swansea Grand Theatre
Oct 29: Birmingham Town Hall
