A terrific set list, genuinely in answer to long-term fans' complaints that the live shows were just the same old selection of hits for the casual fan. Songs I never expected to hear live (again) -Sentimental Fool, If There Is Something, Just Like You, To Turn You On. And yet....

Olympia had just been released and a few months' later the accompanying BF tour would feature many of the same players (bar the core Roxy members). So whose idea was it to sandwich a Roxy tour only a few dates long between the two? There was no new (or even repackaged) Roxy product to promote. I'm sure BF would rather have got on with promoting Olympia yet someone (management? a promoter?) clearly thought a Roxy outing at that point would be a good and commercial move.

Did we really need two drummers (one of them Ferry junior, of course) or two saxophonists? The chemistry between BF and the others seemed strained at best - he was certainly at his least chatty onstage. The resignation of the others to the dawning reality that the prospect of a new Roxy studio album was surely finally doomed can't have helped.

So was it just meant as a final hurrah? A last major payday and turn in the spotlight for Phil, Andy and Paul? The For Your Pension tour? The fact that the officially trailed (on the Roxy website) DVD has never materialised hints at the likelihood that those concerned want to move on and get on with their lives.

If that really was the final Ta-ra then it's a sad way to end.

Cher True2life,
You make the most interesting of points.
The 2001 tour was a phenomenal fandango. I was living in the US at the time and caught them in '01 at Madison .It was amazing but when they returned in '03 and I saw them at Radio City, they were a little less energised and had made few, if any,set list changes. It was towards the end of a very long tour so I put it down to that.
In the interim I'd seen our hero perform a terrific solo 'Frantic' gig at NYC's Beacon so I didn't doubt that he still had it.
Following Radio City, I saw 'Dylanesque' in Paris which I thought was another complete triumph.
Ironically, I was initially not going to make any of the UK FYP shows as I was scheduled to be down under and, knowing Mrs.Windswept wouldn't accept cancelling a holiday for a gig, I considered feigning illness.But quelle surprise, they announced an Oz leg and I caught them in Sydney. By then, the set list was well reported, it contained all my favourites and my excitement cup raneth over.
Despite the great set and phenomenal backdrop visuals, the sausage had certainly lost its sizzle and to say there was a certain lack of frisson would be an understatement. Ok, they were note perfect and Roxy at their worst are still better than anything else but it was clear, all was not well in the kingdom of fandango.
At the time I thought that maybe they were a little tired but six months later I catch the 'Olympia' show and our hero is back on form.
So what occurred? This is the question that perplexes even the most informed Roxologist. Was it just one fandango too many? Did the other members not take kindly to the rest of the line up? Were they just fulfilling an old commitment that they subsequently regretted? Was the tour simply designed to refuel their rockets for the big musicians rest home?
Maybe it will all be made clear in their biographies — until then I suspect it will remain "The Mystery Of The Lack Lustre Tour" and, as you say, if it really was "Tara" it was a sad one.
Regards,
Windswept
Ps. Still pleased I saw it — 2HB was peerless!

I don't know exactly how the short FYP tour of early 2011 came about, but clearly if wouldn't have happened if BF had said "No thanks - I'll Pass."

Back in the summer of 2010 Roxy had a series of well-publicized and well-received festival gigs and it appeared (at least to me) that BF was using them as a way to gear up public attention for the up-coming Olympia cd. And I think that the FYP tour was conceived as an outgrowth of the success of the Roxy 2010 summer gigs.

But then starting in August 2010 things started going sour for Olympia as the (expensive) and much hyped promotional video for You Can Dance induced little more than a big yawn from the public and the release of YCD as a single also attracted little interest and little airplay. But the show must go on and Olympia was released later in the Fall and, by my estimation, turned into commercial disappointment for BF and his record company. So BF is unhappy and he now wants to get on with the business of promoting the album and showing everybody that they're wrong about Olympia, but he's stuck with completing the FYP tour gigs before he can get on the road to promote Olympia directly.

This is not a recipe for a fun and exciting tour. I don't think FYP was conceived in the summer of 2010 as such, but by the time the actual gigs rolled around, it had turned into a classic "Contractually Required" tour which BF saw as something to get through before he could move on with his solo tour (that started in April 2011).

Just my opinion, but I think an unhappy Bryan Ferry is not someone who is going to care about what other people think. And if those other people turn out to be PM and AM and TGPT then that's just the way it is and they are going to have to live with it.

Sigh. The truth is that PM/AM/TGPT need Roxy more than BF needs Roxy. And BF fully understands this state of affairs. With the fortuitous melding of TJA and the Gatsby movie there is scant reason why BF would perceive a professional advantage in reconnecting with Roxy for a long time to come.

The tour was announced prior to the festival gigs in 2010 to mark 40 years of Roxy Music.
I wouldnt read too much into the Olympia connection.
We didnt get the DVD, nor the 40th anniversary release of "Roxy Music".
Others wil know the why behind these matters.
I enjoyed the Glasgow gig I saw and came away happy that I.d had such a long connection with this music.

Yes, I did enjoy the FYP tour. I went to Newcastle and the next day booked for the O2. Stranded tour also stuck out for RM being then at the top but I think FYP gets my vote on content. For sheer delight of them being back together 2001 is another highlight. These are my three/four most memorable......

There sure are enough unanswered questions for future history books and biographies to dig into. I take it we then will get the answers. Those vital questions are undercommunicated in interviews these days. Those are the real stuff, not the "oh"s and "ah"s `bout eating out and what to wear. It seems like Bryan has returned to the days of "Another Time, Another Place", - Gatsby style. He won`t get my 2 cents.

Perhaps you are right avalon eyes that the FYP tour was announced prior to the summer 2010 gigs, but the first 2010 gig was in Helsinki on June 17 and I do not recall that the FYP tour had been previously announced. Perhaps JO'B could track down exactly when FYP was officially announced.

Regardless, by the time Jan 2011 rolled around BF's interest in FYP had clearly faded and I recall he stated in at least one interview how he wished he could move directly to the Olympia tour scheduled to start in April.

Also recall that BF was apparently going through a bit of a rough patch physically (many people commented on how he he was often seated during the FYP gigs) and how in April he was taken to the hospital prior to the start of the Olympia Tour.

For me, the bottom line is that I wish an audio cd of the FYP tour would be released because I have no doubt but that it could be extremely listenable (TGPT later commented that the Aussie shows were of particular high quality). I found the cd of the 2010 tour to be filled with several great performances and I have listened to it many many times over the past decade.

In terms of seeing a DVD of the 2011 tour I am less excited. I consider the DVD of the 2001 London shows to be essentially unwatchable because the camera moves around waaaay too much and there are waaaay too many jumpy cross-cut edits. I fear that a DVD of the FYP shows would also suffer from such over production.

As I recall the FYP Tour was annonced on Tuesday 13th July 2010, with tickets on sale the following day. I remeber well because we were down in London that week to see Roxy at the Lovebox Festival on the 17th and I went into panic mode as I couldn't follow my usual plan of action for ticket buying as we were away from home and I had to go into a grotty internet cafe to get my tickets.

DCJ, I am intrigued by the level of information you can produce when talking about Roxy & Ferry and their business decisions, are you their accountant by any chance

I jest, are you in the music/managment business?

Roxy:
In my "real life" I am an historian by trade with specific research interests in realms far removed from music. But as part of my work I am very engaged in the discipline of business history and my ongoing interest in Roxy/BF springs from both my being a longstanding fan of the music and also being someone who appreciates the power and place of "The Media" and all that it encompasses in the world's political economy.

Anyone who writes off "show business" and the 'music industry" as somehow ephemeral to modern society and it economic underpinnings is not paying attention. Music and show business lie at the heart of the Intellectual Property Juggernaut that has come to encompass both Silicon Valley and Hollywood (writ large) and Big Music. [As one example, the Disney Empire is the prime driver of intellectual property law around the world as they work assiduously to make sure that Mickey Mouse and all his Disney brethren never fall into the public domain)

The tricky part about trying to understand the history of modern "Show/Music Business" is that all the major players do everything possible to shield the industry from real public scrutiny by invocation of extreme versions of "non-disclosure agreements" that litter the business landscape like a remorseless devouring plague. So as someone with an interest in business history I find the BF/Roxy Saga to be a compelling case study that highlights the difficulty of cracking through the opaque "walls of non-disclosure" in order to get a sense of how the music/media business actually operates.

As a final comment in this meandering post, how can someone like me not be intrigued by the fact that BF's latest record company is formally titled "BMG Rights Management" Yes indeed, Rights Management is what it's all about these days in the media biz and BF is right in the thick of it...

Thank you for the explanation DCJ and I hope you didn't mind my asking. I usually have to read your posts a couple of times to take in all the information and detail and wondered how you are so precise with the facts and figures but now it makes sense.