A beautiful performance!
Ollie and Chris Spedding are like rum an cola - hope they`ll share the stage in summer as well.
Lucky me, usually I spend the summer in Greece, but this year, I`ll be in Oslo in June, so I`ll be able to attend "Norwegian Wood". If anyone out there is coming, please let me know.

Well, for it's worth I thought they managed to murder it to be honest. Too much Ollie, too loud Ollie, no bass, hardly any drums and BF wasn't in good fettle whatsoever. Sorry.

I thought that. The mixing sounded off. Ollie too loud, Bryan too soft and really straining to hit the notes..And for such a big band,not enough noise ! Having said all that, it's still good to see him up there with the big boys.

BF's voice doesn't seem to have a lot of power these days. Sometimes it seems to work OK and other times it sounds strained. The Titanic gig was somewhere in-between for him. Not great but nonetheless evocative.

I don't think Bryan can do anything about his voice nor should we have high expectations on this front anymore- time stands still for no man and all that! I was just willing him to hit the notes and he had to push hard to do that. It would have been a shame if he had blown it in front of such a wide audience. It's been going downhill for a long time now and there is not much elasticity left in it so let's just look back at the glory days with affection, accept that singers are particularly exposed by the ageing process, and enjoy the ember years for what they are.

I quite liked the contrast in the instrumentation. I generally find sounds that jar interesting. Remember also that the lads were fronting up a "for one night only" house band who presumably were catering for all acts on the night so there will have only been so much scope to craft the sound to Bryan's requirements.

I wonder how it sounded at the venue itself. Beauty Queen, are you are out there? Did you use your ticket and, if so, what did you make of it from your seat in the hall?

We all know how good Ollie is but he seems to play a solo all the way through at these corporate events. It's just too much for me. Add this together with the usual bad sound mix that you always get from the BBC and it just sounded so bad. With the large orchestra available it should have sounded wonderful but didn't (to us TV viewers). I hope it sounded better at the event.

very true. sadly....and this bit is hard to say... this spoils my enjoyment though. For example, whilst the music and songs of Olympia still grow on me, and i really like them, too many of the vocals are so weak, that I find it hard to listen to them. They sometimes work with the material (Reason/Rhyme) (in ways which remind me of late J Cash)...but often they don't work for me at all (Me Oh My, an otherwise very interesting piece). And I felt the Shepherd's Bush gig was really let down by the vocal throughout. There, I've said it now. Not easy for me....my favourite ever vocalist (even more favourite to me than Bowie, Bush or Sinatra) doesn't do it for me as a singer any more.

I'm very pleased that so many still like his singing and can find a quality in it that they appreciate. Personally, I think he may yet be able to exploit the weakness in a different way (again, referring to late Cash)
...so, maybe there is still another vocal masterpiece to come from Bry. BTW, Cash's Hurt is still my number one fave vocal of all time.

To clarify a little; Bryan's voice is as is, not his fault that time marches on and effects us all in different ways. It was never a strong voice anyway. I have no problem if now it is weak(ish). At least he is willing to get out there and play and I thank him for that.

I do hope that we will have another RM tour one day, that's my wish. Bryan's tours are ok but it's RM for me - isn't that why why are all here?

Sorry, perhaps slipped off topic slightly.

Roxysiren wrote:
"often they don't work for me at all (Me Oh My, an otherwise very interesting piece)."

I agree. "Me Oh My" could`ve been such a great track, if only his voice had been stronger.

The voice changes as does the rest of the man and the musical choices he brings his voice to. There's no doubt at all that it isn't as strong as it once was and it's perhaps a little ironic that it's at this stage of his career that he has rarely, if ever, been on the road as much. For me, the endearing thing is that, like Cash, there's been no attempt to disguise this in the studio and interestingly, I can't recall any reviews that make negative comparisons with the BF of yore - indeed it's the frailty and delicacy of the voice that is so often cited as his quality now. I'm inclined to agree and , notwithstanding some songs are (inevitably) stronger than others, can't think of any element of Olympia for example that would have benefited from a different vocal style.