Regardless of the perceived merits or otherwise of the new mix (unless Steven Wilson's name was a more significant factor than I'm giving him credit for), the Roxy LP certainly flew off the shelves here in London.
All three branches of my local indie store sold out early (I was in two of them within 30-60 mins of them opening, but to no avail), before I was able to bag one in Rough Trade East, who always order in good stocks of all RSD items (a friend had been informed that there were 4,000 copies pressed, but the RT website gave the figure as 1,250, which seems more likely to me).
Frustratingly, given that shoppers are understandably restricted to one copy each, they still had another handful of Roxy LPs when I left the store; normally I could have returned the next day to buy one for Pianoman, but RT decided to put all remaining stocks online at 18.00 and, despite their website appearing to crash at one point under the weight of "traffic", the Roxy item sold out.
It was the same story in Soho; altogether I visited seven shops at the weekend, phoned half a dozen more and drove myself boss-eyed with internet searches, as I tried in vain to find a second copy for our Bavarian correspondent. The only copy I found had been marked up to £35 (I'd paid £24 for mine), which made it uneconomical when postage costs were factored in.
I hope everyone who wanted a copy got lucky; if not, it's usually worth keeping an eye on eBay for a few days, although I suspect that £30-£35 will be the cheapest price.
