Wembley Arena - 23rd June 2001
| Support Act: Rosalie Deighton - see details here |
| Setlist: - Re-make/Re-model,
Street Life, Ladytron, While My Heart Is Still Beating, Out Of The Blue,
A Song For Europe, My Only Love, Oh Yeah, Both Ends Burning, Tara, In Every
Dream Home A Heartache, Mother Of Pearl, Jealous Guy, Editions Of You, Virginia
Plain Encores: Love Is The Drug, Do The Strand, For Your Pleasure |
| Review:I'm
grateful to Inderjit Wassi for this personal review In my opinion, this was not as good as Ferry's solo ATGB tour, of which I saw two concerts. The main reason being that you got the best of both worlds ? Ferry solos, interspersed with Roxy Music tracks. All the musicians on that tour, as now, were great but being a Roxy concert you, by definition., cannot have the Ferry solos ? some of which were brilliant. For example, I did not realise what a great song The Only Face (from the Mamouna album) was until Ferry performed it live at the Royal Albert Hall (dedicating it, incidentally, to his family, who were in the audience). It was also a delight to hear Carrickfergus. Coming back to this concert, I greatly missed Bittersweet, Sunset, Casanova and If There is Something. I believe the latter, possibly one of the finest of all RM tracks, was performed only at the very first concert ? in Dublin. I fear we may never again hear it performed live (a great shame) as Ferry's vocals appear to have mellowed with age and he seems unable to recreate the high and raw notes evident on the first album of 1972. But then I would rather not hear it at all than hear it performed badly. Re-Make, Re-Model was a great opener, and served as a sort of manifesto for the rest of the concert, in which all the tracks were indeed re-made and re-modelled, benefiting from the strides in technology and from new interpretations by all the very talented musicians. For example, Lucy Wilkins was a fitting replacement to Eddie Jobson, on violin, and to Brian Eno, on synthesizer. Julia Thornton was fabulous on percussion. Again, I missed her harp solo from the ATGB tour. Manzanera and Spedding had a great rapport going, which reminded me of their spontaneous jamming session during the TOTP2 filming ? a rhythm of rhyming guitars? Both were supported well by Zev Katz on bass guitar, who last played with Ferry on the Mamouna tour. Andy McKay's extended saxophone solo on Tara was a delight. The theatrical exits were apt for a band whose name was inspired by a cinema. Colin Good was the last band member on stage, and he thoroughly deserved his ovation. His piano intro on Song for Europe was memorable. Let's hope the band are inspired to release some new material BUT only if they do not ruin the memory of their current signoff album, Avalon, which remains, for me their best. |