Dortmund: Fan Review, Too Marvellous For Words - Fri 21st Sep
Dortmund: Fan Review, Too Marvellous For Words
21 September 2001
Many thanks to Beate Ludwig for her personal view.
I will not analyse or criticise every single song the band played today, there is simply no need to do that. Roxy Music in concert (and in general) is best to describe as an overall work of art.
If there are the famous three things which are good, these are, deliberately chosen, Bach, Beethoven and Bryan Ferry - please trust me as someone coming from the classical music.
I have always been waiting for someone who is Beethoven´s heir, but until this evening it did not came into my mind to extend the search to popular music…..
Bryan Ferry – as a very sensitive person – has the gift to put deepest human feelings into a song and in a record as a whole. He is also able not only to pack up these feelings in the form of some of the most wonderful compositions/ melodies I have ever heard, but also to deliver in common with the band a performance whose perfection has no equal.
Moreover, the show´s – this term nearly seems to be to “cheap” – concept is to present a complex affair, there are no interruptions in spite of the different tempi or styles of the songs. So you just dive into the mood and reappear after 2 hours of flight into another land, into the place of Roxy Music, far away from a so troubled real world, yet still engaged in real feelings.
We all need to do this from time to time.
And I have also regarded Roxy Music´s music as mainly “ for the brain” (well, I am German). I was wrong. It is impossible to sit quietly on your seat, it is not possible to sit at all. The rhythms – adapted to the modern – were electrifying. The responsible musicians harmonizing
so well, oh, everything seemed to match.
God, Bryan Ferry running from one end of the stage to the other (then there are actually “Both Ends Burning”) - I do not have to mention that he still looks incredibly marvellous (a heir of Dorian Gray, too ?) – Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay, as well as all the other members of the crew, playing, singing or whatsoever absolutely electrifying: to put the whole matter in a nutshell: it was too marvellous for words.
Then I talked to people about their opinion to the concert and to Roxy Music. So often I heard “Oh, I grew up with Roxy Music, it is a part of my life, it is great that they are back !” or “ They have so much power and expressiveness, right with the first notes, I got a goose-flesh and I am still shivering”, “ Bryan´s voice is even better, clearer than in earlier times, he is the ultimate singer “.
I met many young people, who saw Roxy Music for the first time (and would like to see them again), there even was a young man who took over Bryan´s look from the moustache-time. And the people came from all over the country in order to form a real good audience, a praise to them.
So what is left to say yet…..It was an unforgettable evening and vicariously for surely everyone who likes Roxy Music: I hope very much, that this was not a farewell tour.