By LOUISA CLEAVE
He came on like a sharpshooter then hit his audience in the heart with a song he wrote for New Zealand.
Robbie Williams had not only landed, he was here to strut.
In front of a select audience of 800, invited by his record company EMI, he arrived twirling his
microphone like a six-shooter and fired straight into Millennium.
Within seconds, the British singer had everyone in the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna up and dancing at the only live appearance of his promotional tour to push his new album, Sing When You're Winning.
He certainly was winning when he launched into an untitled song he said he wrote just yesterday morning, the day after he arrived in Auckland.
He had squeezed it in between an appearance on radio and a packed press conference where the tone was set by a topless woman who streaked through.
Williams showed a wickedly sharp and naughty sense of humour as he flirted with the local media and fielded questions about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
His sex appeal was never in doubt.
Presented with a baseball cap by a radio station, he found the names and phone numbers of two presenters printed inside.
The streaker - a stunt by a television show - got close enough to the star for a hug and the suggestion she follow him out back. In one of his rare moments of seriousness, the 26-year-old said luck and a tremendous amount of hard work were the secrets to his success.
But the Williams brand of lunacy was never far away.
Williams will bring his sex appeal and sense of humour - oh yes, and his music - back to New Zealand in October.
