Melbourne: Back for a glam slam - Thu 16th Aug
Melbourne: Back for a glam slam
16 August 2001
Sunday Herald Sun,12 AUG 2001
It was the comeback that might never have happened. The last time
most of us saw Bryan Ferry, it was in December on the evening news. Ferrywas a passenger on a British Airways jumbo jet that came perilously close to crashing after an abortive hijack attempt.
``Obviously, anything like that makes you appreciate you're still here,''says Ferry.
``And that might have had some bearing on finally deciding to do this
concert tour. Thinking, well, `I better do it now or I may not get a chance again'.''
Thirty years after they first put the glamour in glam, Roxy Music are back for a 50-date world tour.
Alongside Ferry is guitarist Phil Manzanera, saxophonist Andy Mackay and drummer Paul Thompson. Essentially, it is the true Roxy Music lineup, even without early member Brian Eno, who declined an invitation.
Andy Mackay says he needed little persuasion to hit the road again -- the first time Roxy have toured since dissolving in 1982.
``It was just difficult to organise,'' he says. ``We've thought about a tour, on and off, for most of the '90s. But knowing the exact number of shows we're going to do, and not having things change as we go along, makes it easier to organise our lives, to get away for four or five months.''
The reunion became a reality after Ferry began slipping more and more of the band's older songs into his recent solo outings.
``The audience response was very strong and I enjoyed singing the Roxy
songs,'' he says. ``And that was one of the big attractions for this tour --to play only Roxy Music songs again with the original guys in big arenas.''
From 1971 to 1982 Roxy Music released eight studio albums and a live album.They evolved from the spiky, experimental art rock of their early albums to a more lush, adult oriented rock sound on later albums such as Flesh And Blood and Avalon.
For this tour, Ferry says he started with a list of 50 songs and then
whittled it down.
``We just wanted to do a balanced selection of songs from the different albums,'' he says. ``It wasn't that difficult in the end, actually. It looked a bit daunting at the beginning, but when we started getting down to it, the songs virtually suggested themselves.'' Mackay said some songs just had to be included.
``There are some songs that you just have to do, otherwise people get
upset,'' he says. ``Avalon, Jealous Guy, Virginia Plain -- those sorts of songs.
``But we play numbers from all periods of the band. I think a lot of people won't have heard some of the songs on stage before, or at least not for a very long time.
``People who came to our 1975 concert may recognise one or two things.''
Renowned for his perfectionism, Ferry says the big difference about touring this time around is the vastly improved technology for lighting and sound.
And Ferry likes to have things just right.
``Bryan is obsessed with all the details, but that's the way Bryan is,''says Mackay.
Roxy Music will perform at Rod Laver Arena on Thursday.