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Review: Bryan Ferry

Logan Campbell Centre, Hunter Valley, Australia
4th December 2007 Graham Reid

New Zealand Herald 5th November 2007

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Graham Reid: They may be middle-aged but the star quality still shines out brightly 5:00AM Wednesday December 05, 2007 By Graham Reid Graham Reid Your Views Your Reviews of Bryan Ferry and Joan Armatrading Send us Your Views Read Your Views Only rarely do we see artists late in their career - when they could comfortably coast on past glories or back-catalogue - extend themselves into new territory, as Joan Armatrading did in her powerful and assertively bluesy set before Bryan Ferry.

After a well-received, acoustic opening bracket at the Logan Campbell Centre by Auckland singer-songwriter Danny McCrum and Ben Jurisich, Armatrading announced her intentions by kicking in with A Woman in Love from her current album Into the Blues - and proved that when it comes to playing rocking electric guitar she has found her natural idiom in the blues.

Yes, she did play some of her older material - an electrifying Show Some Emotion and Me, Myself, I among them.

But it was on new songs such as Something's Gotta Blow where she really delivered, and made clear that far from resting on considerable past glories and a 30-year catalogue of songs, she was pushing into new and rewarding areas.

And her huge smile when she announced just how rewarding - her album went to number one on the Billboard blues charts - was further vindication.

Armatrading and her tight, cracking band delivered with such fierce commitment I'd guess many in the audience could have called it a night then and still gone home happy.

Bryan Ferry, in a suit that probably cost more than my car, was a slow starter. His cool take on Dylan's bitter Positively 4th Street lacked the venom or vindictiveness the lyrics insist on, but he, too, had a terrific band and when they kicked in with some astringent sax and discordant keyboards they effectively, if briefly, conjured up that old Roxy Music magic.

His set had a natural upward trajectory through the ever-popular Jealous Guy, and by Let's Stick Together and other past glories Ferry - by then in a spangly jacket - had the almost capacity crowd in that dreadful building on their feet.

Armatrading and Ferry are both what we might call middle-aged, not that you'd have known it on the night.