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Roxy Music at the Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
The band substituted the leopard skin and glitter of their youth for suits and open-necked shirts
Rated to 4 stars
Roxy Music’s career roughly falls into two periods. The first contains the brilliantly odd camp of their early 1970s albums. The second came when Bryan Ferry’s commercial side took over and resulted in such huge 1980s hits as Avalon and More Than This, which, despite their sleek charm, always sounded a little as though they were designed to keep him in country homes.
So it’s cause for celebration that in their first major tour in a decade, the original members of Roxy returned to so much of their early material.
Augmented by three slinky backing singers and two even slinkier dancers, Roxy arrived in a flash of glamour, even if founder members Phil Manzanera on guitar, Andy Mackay on saxophone, Paul Thompson on drums and Ferry had substituted the leopard skin and glitter of their youth for suits and open-necked shirts.
Bursting into Street Life, one of the greatest celebrations of escapism ever to make a hit single, they reminded us of the strange vision — ironic but convincing, seemingly superficial but with hidden depths — which they created.
Ferry led the band through early album tracks such as 2HB, a tribute to Humphrey Bogart, and If There Is Something, in which he demonstrates his fealty to a lover by promising to “grow potatoes by the score,” this presumably being the ultimate indignity for one so urbane.
“It’s great to be back in Newcastle,” said Ferry, in an accent reminiscent of Prince Philip. You would never guess he grew up a few miles away.
The concert lost a lot of energy halfway through, with too many saxophone and guitar solos but it came alive with Virginia Plain, followed by Love Is The Drug. Ferry came alive too: as the dancers shimmied away behind him, he decided to join in and, to his credit, didn’t look too much like a businessman at a nightclub.
Energised by the crowd’s enthusiasm, the band burst into Editions Of You, from 1972’s For Your Pleasure. It sounded manic, and totally engaging. Do The Strand followed. There’s something perverse, even depraved, in the way Ferry name-checks a series of old-fashioned dance routines in the lyrics while sounding like he’s having a nervous breakdown, but it’s very compelling.
There would have been a riot if Roxy didn’t do their version of John Lennon’s Jealous Guy: it still sounds as much about Jerry Hall leaving him for Mick Jagger as it does a response to Lennon’s death.
Despite moments of uncertainty, this was a (mostly) triumphant reminder of the intelligence and wit that lies at the heart of Roxy’s version of pop music.
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