Harrogate International Centre - Thu 22nd Mar
Harrogate International Centre
22 March 2007
Bryan Ferry, Harrogate International Centre
By Charles Hutchinson
HE may now be the respectable establishment face of M&S, but
suddenly the old love for making fully-committed music is burning deep
inside Bryan Ferry again at 61.
Harrogate International Centre was as gentrified as the Washington
aesthete, but this reviewer hasn't seen him so wrapped up in his
performance for years: not at Castle Howard in 2000, nor with the
re-formed Roxy Music at the Sheffield Arena a year later.
In black suit, white shirt and slim black tie that he wears better than
anyone in Reservoir Dogs, he opened with The In Crowd, a calculated
reminder of his status as the epitome of elegant cool but with a hint
of exotic danger.
Backed by a cracking band, propelled by Ian Dixon's sax and Chris
Spedding's guitar, he avoided a comfortable, supper-club greatest hits
set in favour of taking risks. Only a superlative Jealous Guy was
picked from the deluxe Roxy repertoire; instead Ferry delved into his
solo store room for such unexpected delights as When She Walks In The
Room to complement the old big hitters Let's Stick Together and A Hard
Rain's Gonna Fall.
There is a motive to this tour, an album to sell of Ferry covers of
Dylan, and it was fascinating to hear that velvet croon re-interpret
the formerly vituperative Positively 4th Street as a song of regret or
bring an aching romance to Make You Feel My Love. The album is called
Dylanesque; this concert was not merely Ferryesque, it was the original
Ferry at his Ferry best. Welcome back.