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Review: Roxy Music

Trent Arena, Nottingham, United Kingdom
2nd February 2011
Andrew Trendell

Left Lion 3rd February 2011

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I don't know about you, but I've always been told that life is marathon and not a sprint, and I've always respected slow-burning gigs that reflect that. When you go and see a band as iconic and canonistic as Roxy Music, naturally you expect the hits, blended with a smattering of fan favourites from now classic albums. Stepping into the cavernous enormo-dome of the insert-current-corporate-owner-here Arena, one is immediately greeted by a timid sea of aging casual fans wanting a taste of the past. And that is certainly what they got, but one that rests on the palette and takes time to kick in.

In bringing the glam spirit of their heyday back to life, Roxy certainly can't be faulted. Swaggering the stage tailored in sharp suits like successful, but debauched estate agents, Ferry and co. show they still know how to make mums swoon. With video screens to fulfil their art-rock aesthetic and dancers who move so fluidly that you'd mistake them for a liquid if they weren't so firm and distracting, the band leave nothing to chance in delivering the full Roxy experience.

The only gripe really is the order of the set. Early on, fans are dazzled by a funkadelic rendition of The Main Thing and the sight of Bryan Ferry, the ultimate showman, stalking the stage with underrated axe-king Phil Manzanera on the brilliant Street Life, but much of what followed was a dirge that fell on the deaf ears of the less dedicated fans, especially as their sound can prove so trying at times. This is because many of the songs, when Ferry isn't crooning, are filled by incessant clarinet and saxophone solos that are utterly unnecessary. Imagine being stuck in a lift or dentist's waiting lounge for eternity, and you're halfway there.

It isn't really until well over an hour into the set when the more familiar moments from their back catalogue spark the casual audience back to life. Avalon is still as shimmering and delicate as it ever was, like a chandelier smashing to the ground slow motion, and the art-rock odyssey of Virginia Plain is played with such conviction that all present remember why it's one of the best pop songs in the history of recorded sound.

Slowly leaving the stage one by one, Roxy step into the shadows content, with the last words of For Your Pleasure ringing around the arena: 'I hope things will turn out right old man, through every step a change you watch me walk away, tara tara'¦'�

More plodding than sprinting, these monolithic godfathers of glam reached the finish line under a shower of glory, and though it was certainly never a race, victory was theirs.