Hedonistic hipsters,
Comme tout le monde Windswept has been indecently excited by the recent round of interviews.
It’s been great to hear our hero en pleine form et like Oberon, W2 detects him to be more open than usual. Oh the freedom that comes with age!
Obviously the new album or albums give us much to look forward to and are doubtless on every thinking Ferryista’s wish list.
W2 would also like to add his desire for a box set of Blu-rays with accompanying CDs (hopefully with material from the cutting room floor).
With new fandangos looking increasingly unlikely, reliving these fabulous shows and maintaining them for prosperity will become essential.
W2 every official DVD going but would be the first in line for a Blu-ray update. After the new album this is his number one wish unless we can have a residency at Ronnie Scotts?
Salutations et une tres bonne anne a tous.
Windswept

HNY W2. Good to see you back!

I'm with you, W2, I'd love to see some more visuals from the archive. There are tours where pretty much every show was filmed, yet to what avail? Gems just lying around gathering dust! For sure, there's work to be done editing, producing, and manufacturing but it's all a far cry from starting a project from scratch - the core material is already there.

That aside, surely (to God, almighty!), 2025 will be the year of the FYP SDE and how fabulous to bookend it with the 'Avalon big box' - releases twinned to showcase the peak of classic and later Roxy.

Then of course, there's BF's 80th birthday. I hope some if the media and the likes of BBC Radio 2 see fit to mark this milestone in some meaningful way, as they have done for other artists. Something that might bring BF to the attention of some younger listeners and shine a celebratory light on to what we're led to believe - and fervently hope - will be not one, but two new albums, breaking an 11 year gap in new material (once again, casting a rather blind eye in the direction of Bitter-Sweet, to accentuate the wait).

In the meantime, happy new year.

@UKRichard

...I assume that Bryan's 80th birthday will receive just as much media attention as his 60th or 70th birthday...

Perhaps Bryan doesn't like this kind of attention at all, in which case it would be understandable that he only occupies a small marginal note in the media landscape, otherwise I would hope that his management does a job that needs improvement.

A number of BF's contemporaries have reached this specific milestone (as distinct from 60 or 70) in recent times and had it marked by events on BBC Radio, TV and iPlayer (the BBC's streaming service). They're generally archive related, so nothing that necessarily requires contemporary input from the artist concerned, or that is any way intrusive.

I'd say it would be remiss of the BBC - to cite just one part of the media - not to afford the same commemoration to another of our country's most influential recording artists.

Dear UKRichard,

I completely agree with you. But a tribute to our beloved artist by the BBC presupposes that Bryan also has to give his consent to such a tribute....

I can't imagine that a broadcaster deciding to dig out some material it owns, and slot it into a schedule it controls, requires the consent of anyone.

The sort of tributes I'm talking about here are invariably a number of repeats, strung together into a themed night, by way of a celebration. Only occasionally might there be something new like a documentary.

Roxy have already enjoyed a BBC2 themed evening.