The assembled band, dubbed Robert Wyatt & Friends, included most of the musicians from the Rock Bottom recording sessions and several guests.

Robert Wyatt & Friends consisted of Dave Stewart, Laurie Allan, Hugh Hopper of Soft Machine, Mongezi Feza, Gary Windo, Mike Oldfield, Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, Fred Frith of Henry Cow, Julie Tippetts, and Ivor Cutler.

After the concert, Wyatt continued his recording career but stopped performing as a solo artist due to the difficulties of organizing a live backing band and his chronic, intense stage fright.

The official release in 2005 received generally favorable reviews, with critics praising the album as a showcase for Wyatt's vocals and a compelling document of the progressive Canterbury scene.

[10] His first album on Virgin Records,[11] Rock Bottom was released on 26 July 1974, the same day as Wyatt's wedding to Alfreda Benge (known as Alfie).

[17] The one-off backing band assembled for the concert, dubbed Robert Wyatt & Friends, included most of the musicians featured on Rock Bottom along with several other guests.

[19] The band included Wyatt's "dream rhythm section" of Dave Stewart on keyboards, Laurie Allan on drums, and Hugh Hopper on bass guitar.

[20] Other performers from the Rock Bottom sessions included Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Mike Oldfield on guitar, Fred Frith on several stringed instruments, and Ivor Cutler on spoken word vocals.

[23] Commenting on the photo years later, Wyatt told Uncut it was "a real laugh doing it", but said that the NME received complaints from readers who felt the image was "a bit tasteless".

[24] John Peel, the BBC Radio 1 disc jockey, served as the evening's master of ceremonies wearing a glam rock-style costume.

[21] During "Sea Song", the band launched into extended group improvisations not present on the studio version, which Simon Reynolds compared to an "Anglicised Bitches Brew," and ends the song with improvisatory scat singing, which Reynolds described as his "falsetto spiral[ling] up into ecstatic scat acrobatics, as though his spirit is trying to escape his shattered body.

[22] "Mind of a Child" is the only song by Tippetts included on the official live album; Barnes speculated that the others were presumably deleted to fit a CD-length total runtime.

In "Calyx", a Hatfield and the North cover originally recorded as an instrumental with wordless vocals, Wyatt sang lyrics of his own devising to the melody in addition to scatting.

In the Daily Telegraph, Maurice Rosenbaum wrote "[t]here was more genuine originality in Robert Wyatt's concert at Drury Lane Theatre last night than I have heard for a long time.

"[24] Although Murray disliked Tippet's contributions, he highlighted the "thoroughly berserk version" of "I'm a Believer" as the show's climax, particularly the "singularly dirty rhythm guitar" played by Oldfield.

[20]In the years since, Wyatt has never again performed live as a headliner, making the Drury Lane show the only concert in his over four-decade solo career.

[35][36] He has rarely performed live at all after Drury Lane, even as a guest of other musicians, in part because he developed intense stage fright.

[39] In 2005, Wyatt told Mojo that he would have loved to tour with the Drury Lane band but that Mason, Oldfield, and Frith made that a logistical impossibility.

"[41] Mills recalled the live version of "Calyx" that appeared on Eps was "in pristine condition, suggesting that a quality recording does exist," but he speculated "[p]erhaps Wyatt sees no reason to release any more from this concert.

The CD packaging includes a note about this on the back cover: Warning: About half the original recording of the concert, all the stuff after Julie T's solo song ["Mind of a Child"], is "lost".

[46]In an interview, Wyatt said that some of the earlier bootlegs "simply shouldn't have" been released due to their poor sound quality, comparing them to fans searching through Bob Dylan's garbage.

[49] In AllMusic, Thom Jurek praised the quality of the lineup, with Wyatt in "excellent form" and the band, though "a bit ragged in places, are nonetheless tight and full of fire.

"[47] Will Hermes wrote in Spin that, compared to the "claustrophobic poignancy" of Wyatt's studio recordings, "this polished live disc lights up a world where weirdo jazz-rock and the Monkees grope in the dark.

[48] Mike Barnes at The Wire wrote "those who have only heard the recorded songs—lush, childlike and dreamy, but with disquiet seeping in at their edges—might be surprised how strong they sound live.

[17] Barnes also quibbled with the omission of the free improvisation segment in the middle of the concert, cuts that he felt were made to leave time for the "pointless and irritating" hidden track.

[52] Released on 28 October, Drury Lane was made available in both CD and LP format, marking the live album's first official pressing on vinyl.

In the Irish music magazine Analogue, Ciarán Gaynor gave Theatre Royal Drury Lane a 90%, tying it with Rock Bottom for the highest score in Wyatt's discography.

[53] In The Wire, David Stubbs said Wyatt "can't achieve [Rock Bottom]'s full effect in a live setting, but the love in which this good and great musician is wreathed from colleagues, audience, and compère John Peel alike, is warmly palpable.

"[28] David Cavanagh of Uncut said the concert "skirts the outermost musical avant-garde at times, and gets pretty sloppy at others," but noted that the "unexpected arrangements" of songs from Rock Bottom made the album "fascinating" on the whole.

"[54] All tracks are written by Robert Wyatt, except where noted.After several minutes of silence on "I'm a Believer", there is an untitled hidden track—an alternate version of "Alife" played in reverse.