Review: Bryan Ferry
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 10th March 2007
Phil Key
Liverpool Daily Post 12th March 2007
FROM the moment Bryan Ferry strides confidently on stage and pushes those familiar Roxy Music buttons, it is standing room only. Fans young and old are up on their feet, dancing in the aisles, he knows what they have come to hear and is happy to give them exactly what they want.
Even when the still debonair former Roxy Music front man delves into his solo collection with These Foolish Things and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, the aud- ience want to share the moment. He still has the ability to make the evening seem personal.
If the sell-out audience age range is anything to go by, Ferry has at least one further generation of fans prepared to share his musical journey - and there is no doubt he is still on that journey. Never one to live entirely comfortably in the grooves of earlier fame, he has stepped back to the classics, enjoyed revamping versions of Everly Brothers' hits and restyled John Lennon's Jealous Guy.
Now with a voice that is deeper and arguably less silky smooth, his latest album pays homage to master folk, rock and protest poet Bob Dylan. Ferry's slant on Make You Feel My Love, Knockin' On Heaven's Door and Gates of Eden, make fascinating album and stage numbers - particularly the near-anthem The Times They Are A-Changin'.
There was the odd detracting voice as the audience left the hall, seemingly uncomfortable with Ferry's latest strides along his musical highway, although it's difficult to imagine what they were expecting - the new CD is, after all, titled Dylanesque. The new titles show how Ferry has aimed for a feel of the Dylan era, to give the tracks, even on the CD, a live feel.
Dylan demanded his fans accept his stride from acoustic to electric, now he sees his songs taken from his New York street-cred threads to the elegant suit-wearing, loose-knotted tie, sophistication that remains the Bryan Ferry stage autograph.
