Regardless of how you might feel about Williams — and there may be huge swathes of you who think they know everything there is to know about the man, too much possibly — I encourage you to pause judgement until you’ve seen him live. Over the past two decades I’ve seen him perform a number of times — Wembley Stadium, Fashion Rocks at the Albert Hall in 2003, the rehearsal for a private performance in LA about a decade later, yada yada yada — and he has never been less than extraordinary. There are many things Williams isn’t, but there is no one who can control an audience like he can. All those clichés about his days in the working men’s clubs paying off are true: there is literally no one who can walk on to a stage and own an audience so quickly and so comprehensively. You might not like his music (you’re wrong) and you might just think it’s the kind of stuff you listened to 25 years ago when you couldn’t escape a day without hearing Angels blaring out of a car radio, a café or a TV screen — but watching him live is something everyone should once in their life. Even if only for 10 minutes.