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Roxy Music Tour 2001|
Viewed from about 12 rows back center left it was a thoroughly enjoyable performance that -- at its high points -- brought on a deep reflective satisfaction that echoed across 25+ years of listening to Roxy. It brought back memories of Country Life tour gigs and evoked undeniable feelings of getting old and living a middle aged-life that is eons removed from the last time I saw Roxy. What I found perhaps most striking was how old the audience was. I joked with some 30-year old friends that this was probably the last rock concert they would ever attend where they would be the youngest people in the crowd. We laughed, but we all knew it was true. That`s not to say the audience wasn`t responsive and appreciatitive and totally into the music. We were simply very old. Across the aisle from me a guy around 50 sat calmly reading a book while waiting for the show to start. He knew why he had bought his tix waaaaaaay back in March. Pre-show hoopla was not why he came. He came for the music. I`m sure he wasn`t disappointed. You all now the set list by now so I won`t reiterate except to say that THANK GOD we got to experience Virginia Plain given that we lost out on Mother of Pearl. The set list was not too short, but it was right at the lower limit of acceptability. Anything less would have been too little. Quick comments. BF`s voice was great all night, but sometimes it got lost in the mix a bit. Andy was great but often got lost abit in the mix. Phil was very good (Ladytron especially) but the solo at the end of Both Ends Burning did not equal what`s on the BBC/Glasgow recording (but SOME of that might relate to a less than crystal clear live mix). Spedding looks like he has lived a very exhausting life over the past 25 years, but his solo on My Only Love was emotionally wrenching and moving and incredibly memorable. The bass player was ok but nowhere close to how great he THOUGHT he was. The rest of the back up band was very good and delivered the goods without a doubt. Of course, the real treat of the show was the performance of TGPT. The mix on his cymbals could have been a tad louder, but the sound of his snare and toms and bass was superb and brought to the fore his incredible skill in laying down a beat AND creating fills that emphasize exactly what needs emphasis in the context of a song. He made you realize the importance of his role in creating the Classic Roxy Sound but who should be surprised about that? The real revelation was how he took all the post-Manifesto material and made it come alive in ways that made it impossible to concieve why he couldn`t have excelled as the drummer on F&B and Avalon. His treatments of Heart/Beating and Oh Yeah were superb. And he has taken Jealous Guy and made the drums one of the most evocative elements of the song (in a song that has no shortage of evocative elements). His performance was so skilled and nuanced and right that it beggars the imagination to contemplate why it was thought necessary/desirable to replace him after Manifesto. But life is filled with such after-the-fact unexplainables and Roxy is about life.... In the end, what will stay with me from the show and live in my
memory is the feeling I had during Out of the Blue. Past and Present
melded into one. It was 1974 again and it was right here right now.
I wasn`t transformed. I was lost in the moment and the memory. The
rest of the show was a great concert. Out of the Blue was something
different. Pale blue eyes. Throw away lines. It rang true.... |
aw
the Philly/Camden show on the 19th and I`ve taken a couple of days
to ruminate on how to report upon it. The day after the show my
neighbor asked me "How was the show -- did it change your life?"
I answered "no" while expressing amazement that anybody
would think that any musical/art performance would change my life.
Fuggedaboutit (as we say in Philly), not gonna happen and why should
it?