Roxy break America – 40 years on
Roxy Music Madison Square Garden, New York Touring the UK October 10-14 ★★★★★
New York’s biggest indoor arena has signs on the doors saying ‘No re-entry. All exits are final.’ Try telling that to pop’s senior citizens.
Roxy Music haven’t released a new album since 1982, but this week, on their 50th-anniversary tour, four of their founders – Bryan Ferry, Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson – achieved a career high: headlining Madison Square Garden for the first time.
Roxy did everything fast except conquering America. Their only US million-seller was their final LP, Avalon from 1982, which took ten years to get there, neatly demonstrating that they were ahead of their time.
Their only previous appearance at Madison Square Garden was a fiasco. It was 1972, they were supporting Jethro Tull, they were unknowns and their amps were too puny for an arena. Manzanera still has anxiety dreams about that night.
He needn’t have worried about this one. It has the right support act, the Texan art-pop star St Vincent, performing her slinky electronica with gay abandon. Ferry and company, reinforced by five session players and three backing singers, follow her with a set of two halves.
The first half dwells on the scattergun dynamism of 1972-73, when Brian Eno was still on board and they ricocheted from fearless weirdness (In Every Dream Home A Heartache) to wistful reflection (If There Is Something).
At nearly 77, Ferry still has all his elegance, if not his full vocal range. But then the swagger of youth is more interesting when it comes arm in arm with the ravages of time.
The second half homes in on Roxy’s last two albums, Flesh &
Blood and Avalon, which were quite different – immaculate, polished, intensely soulful. It’s this side of them that resonates today.
The most influential hit of the 2020s, Blinding Lights by The Weeknd, was consciously modelled on Roxy’s More Than This. Yet again, their influence extends to influencing the influencers. It happened in the 1970s with Talking Heads and Chic, in the 1980s with ABC and The Smiths, in the 1990s with
Pulp and Suede. They are the thinking band’s thinking band.
More Than This is now their greatest hit on Spotify, with 130million plays. Posterity has spotted the hidden depths in late Roxy, the melancholy magic. They play 11 tracks from 1979 to 1982, including a glorious Dance Away, a glowing Oh Yeah and an iridescent Tara, accompanied by a portrait of the Queen.
The evening ends with a swing (Love Is The Drug), a strut (Do The Strand), a laugh (Editions Of You) and a lovely ache (John Lennon’s Jealous Guy).
Manzanera’s guitar and Mackay’s sax shine out, and the backing vocals are a treat by themselves.
The visuals – a wall of Warhol, a nod to Matisse – have the artschool brio of the old LP sleeves.
This is a show with only one flaw: there’s no sign of Virginia Plain, Roxy’s fizzing first hit.
They must be saving it for their British fans.