Let you entertain us? Any time, Robbie. Any time

Three hours is a long time in showbiz, or at least the version of it that occupies centre stage at the Melbourne Cup. Just how long is evident in the two Robbie Williams concerts at Flemington.

The first, at 2.15pm, runs just 15 minutes and is a raging success. Four songs, an abundance of energy and pizzazz, and a playfulness that carries equally to the crowd at home and those watching at the track.

The second begins at 5.45pm and runs for about 90 minutes. It has its highlights, its moments, and – this being a Robbie Williams show – an abundance of entertainment, and it ends on an absolute high.

But along the way, the 10,000 or so who have stayed beyond the last race often appear to be spent after a day on the turf, and the turps. “Good work, Melbourne,” says Williams near the end: “You’ve really put in a shift today.”

For the first set, a portable stage is hastily put together in the Mounting Yard in front of the Grandstand, and just as hastily dismantled afterwards. The 10-strong band is on it throughout; Williams barely touches it, preferring to roam across the grass and get close to the not-so-common people.

He enters the Yard looking every bit the thoroughbred he is. Chin up, chest out, head back, resplendent in an eye-catching dark blue suit (heck, let’s call it silks), he struts across the grass, making his way to the edges of the enclosure to lap up the attention and adoration of the crowd.

No stranger to marquee events – he’d have been at the 2020 F1 Grand Prix had it not been for COVID shutting it down, and he set the bar for entertainment at the 2022 AFL grand final – Williams knows how to package up the hits and memories amassed over three decades no matter how many minutes he’s got.

He’s somewhere off to the eastern end of the Yard when he begins singing Feel. By the time he’s made it to the stage, through a phalanx of white-clad dancers wielding yellow parasols, the band has already segued into Rock DJ, and we seem to be getting Medley Williams, the condensed greatest-hits showcase he served up at the MCG four years ago.

As has been reported in this masthead, VRC chief executive Kylie Rogers was instrumental in landing him for that gig. Perhaps she had whispered in his ear ahead of Cup Day that it would be nice if he did something a little different this time round. Whatever the case, he gives us a more or less full-length rendition of his club banger, then saunters off into the crowd again to lead a mass singalong to his ballad Angel, again delivered near-enough in toto.

He finishes with Let Me Entertain You. Of course, he does. It may or may not be a contractual obligation to perform that song wherever he goes, but it’s certainly a promise on which he makes good every time he steps on a stage.

Three and a bit hours, and many glasses of Mumm and whatever else later (for the crowd, not for the sober star), he is back on stage at the Elms, at the western edge of the complex. As the sun begins to sink, the diehards crowd in, and the show starts, to the strains of Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. It quickly gives way to Let Me Entertain You, as if the earlier set has just been turned on its head and started over.

He emerges in bedazzled red tracksuit and begins coaching the crowd – “one hand in the air, two hands in the air” – but whether due to exhaustion, inebriation or apathy, many seem unwilling or incapable of getting into the spirit.

Williams is undaunted. “The number one rule is you must love your audience,” he says. “And in the ’90s I tried to love you all individually.” Tish-boom.

Patter is a fundamental part of a Robbie Williams show, but many in this crowd seem too far gone to follow it, or even want to try.

He rattles through the songs – Land of 1000 Dances and Ain’t That a Kick in the Head from his swing period, Rock DJ, Strong, Supreme.

He teases that this gig “is a posh do”, and that Melbourne is the “poshest city in Australia outside of Adelaide”. That might have stung, had he not swiftly added that Adelaide is populated with “the poshest bogans that ever existed”.

He refers to his biopic, Better Man, made in Melbourne and with the Williams character sporting the head of a chimpanzee (it’s so much better than that might suggest, but the concept proved a tough sell and the film did poorly at the box office).

“Did anybody see my film,” he asks, and is soon inventing responses. “What’s that, the best film ever made? It should have won nine Oscars? Thank you very much.” When he sings the song, clips from the movie play on the screen behind him; well, there’s always streaming and DVD to bolster the coffers, right?

He pays tribute to his wife Ayda Field, whom he credits (genuinely) with having saved his life. And he claims he called Noel Gallagher after Oasis split up and volunteered to become the band’s frontman. Noel told him to f- off, apparently, but that doesn’t stop him launching into Wonderwall.

Williams’ ego is the stuff of legend – hell, he even called one of his albums The Ego Has Landed – but in truth he’s willing to share the spotlight, at least a little. He invites the crowd to judge whether his band members are “shit or not”, giving each of them a mini-showcase, all on covers.

The guitarist gets Shania Twain’s I Feel Like a Woman; bass gets Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning, Williams claiming “I genuinely don’t know what they’re going to play”; for drums it’s Men At Work’s Down Under, which gets a huge response; the backing singers get Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer; and the brass section starts on Tom Jones’ It’s Not Unusual before Williams cuts them off, tells them to “do the thing”, and they launch into The Village People’s YMCA, Robbie leading the crowd in the semaphore dance.

“Melbourne,” he says, “that was f—ing amazing.” He’s one of the biggest stars on the planet and he’s basically doing karaoke. He’s right. It is f—ing amazing.

There’s more: INXS’s Never Tear Us Apart (keyboards), The Beatles’ Hey Jude (acoustic guitar). And then he launches into Kids, but sadly that’s the end of the Aussie tributes; there’s no Kylie.

The two-song encore is a redux of the earlier set, with Feel and Angels, both of which elicit a huge singalong response from the crowd.

It took a while to get them there, but he did it in the end, like he always does. Let him entertain you and he absolutely will.

Good work, Robbie Williams. You’ve really put in a shift today.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.