Roxy Music Live - S/D

re that last point - i am always surprised that OG Roxy vinyl is mostly affordably priced when (say) Bowie or Eno LPs cost astronomical amounts

oh yeah this was the oldest crowd I've seen at a show in a very long time. I'm 50 and felt quite young.

man seeing Roxy last night at O2 was extremely magical. they sounded absolutely out of this world. added Virginia and Jealous Guy to the set. It was like seeing Santana in the Bay or Los Lobos in LA energy.

ticket price would have put off younger people - I know it did for me and other friends in our 30s who love the records

This is fantastic (from Manchester a few days ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEPwaxA9XKA

"ticket price would have put off younger people - I know it did for me and other friends in our 30s who love the records"

yeah but the tickets were dirt cheap in the US

they were not. Even the cheapo seats I got were still $80, iirc.

Always thought that's Jacqui Sullivan, one of "The Sirens" along with Doreen Chanter.

maybe it was just the SF bay area; yes the tickets started out expensive but when they didn't sell they wound up on Goldstar for like $25.

they were a bit more than that on goldstar here, and they sold out fast.

Do you suppose there’s been a problem with ageism and Roxy music? Are people saying they are too old?

Nah, they just aren't the live draw in the US that they are in the UK.

Yeah, but the audience was overwhelmingly made up of fans from the band’s original lifetime in the UK.
I can imagine some fans feel they’re too old, yeah.

Oh yeah, the show I went to in Texas was like mostly an over-50 crowd. But they don't really get played on radio or have any presence in contemporary pop culture here aside from More Than This being in Lost in Translation twenty years ago? Leonard Cohen and the Rolling Stones sold out shows here, so it's not their age per se.

Their work always seemed much more contemporary to the present or "younger" than a lot of big arena acts from the '70s (at least the ones that played arenas in the U.S.), but at the same time, they're not up there with, say, David Bowie in terms of reaching a younger audience.

In the UK I think a part of it is that later smoother Roxy + public-Ferry blot out the pre-hiatus invention, fun, adventure etc - ie it's an effort to see through to a cool that's palatable to the Gen X culture class. Hypothetically - not that audience age is a problem to be solved - a tour with Eno in the line-up would have got more under 50s?

haha photo of under-40 at the Manchester gig:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Ferry

i think a tour with eno would have sold out due to the novelty of it; but it also obviously was not something that would ever happen.

yeah absolutely I meant it more about perceptions of Roxy rather than viability or desirability.

haha photo of under-40 at the Manchester gig:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Ferry

― woof,

he really does have awful children

Fox hunting advocate? Ok.

It always reminds me of that story (I think in the Paul Stump biog) of Jerry Hall inviting Bryan to her family's house in Texas and him just being completely freaked out by the iguanas (or some kind of infestation) in her house.

Notwithstanding his blue collar upbringing, I think Bryan has not-so-secretly always aspired to be an aristocrat.

If it was Texas it was probably geckos. They are everywhere and we leave them along because they eat bugs like roaches (also they look cool and don't bite or otherwise cause trouble).

Cockroaches iirc.

i think Bryan himself has advocated for fox hunting

Notwithstanding his blue collar upbringing, I think Bryan has not-so-secretly always aspired to be an aristocrat.

yeah I take it as the arc of Roxy/Ferry - Ferry creates a fiction which envelops him.

WHy is that kid in wikipedia

Pet Shop Boy Neil says there is ageism in pop music.

HWO CAN WE VERIFY

Would there be any more than a couple of dozen people in any city who would only have bought tickets to see Roxy if Eno were there pretending to turn some dials onstage?

I'd buy a ticket regardless of whether Eno was there, but if Eno showed and just sipped a cup of tea onstage the entire time, I'd still get a kick out of it.

Eno could just send a robot a la Kraftwerk and he coudl appear on ZOOM for three seconds and say "CHEERS DUES!"

i think a tour with eno would have sold out due to the novelty of it

Even if they had, and played the first two Roxy records in full plus Here Come the Warm Jets, I'm sure they would have sold fewer tickets in North America, not more.

Notwithstanding his blue collar upbringing, I think Bryan has not-so-secretly always aspired to be an aristocrat.

Which is probably part of the problem in their attracting younger fans.

"More Than This" is enough of a staple that my students know the song without identifying the singer. He's not attracting younger fans because the traditional modes of image promotion at which Ferry excelled -- the glossy magazine, the poster, the constant video push -- are gone.

Plus, Ferry wasn't writing acoustic guitar hummables. One of those students shocked me last spring when in our newsroom she strummed "Criminal World" after "Life on Mars?" She loved Bowie, learned the song on her guitar from her parents' collection.

The friend I took with me to see them a couple weeks ago considered himself a fan, yet as far as I could tell only knew "More Than This."

Oh boy, it is getting rough
When his old world charm isn't quite enough.

I'm not sure I knew anyone among my peers who ever mentioned Roxy Music. I even recall bringing them up when I was in college on certain occasions and having to explain who they were. I remember when "More Than This" was used in Lost in Translation partially because I don't think I ever heard it anywhere else before, and even afterwards, I can't remember hearing it anywhere. (I don't think classic rock radio in Chicago ever programmed it or any Roxy Music, did they?) Their music in general is something I had to put it on myself.

Its more the idea of Roxymusic that I like than the music

I first heard of Roxy Music through a couple guys in college who were just intimidatingly cool to me. As it should be I guess.

(I don't think classic rock radio in Chicago ever programmed it or any Roxy Music, did they?)

"Classic rock" stations in Chicago never played it, but in addition to "More Than This," I heard all of the following on WXRT with some regularity between 1984 and 1998: "Love Is The Drug," "Do The Strand," "Both Ends Burning," "Out Of The Blue," "The Thrill Of It All," "Avalon," "Over You," "Dance Away," and even "Eight Miles High" once or twice. I have never heard Roxy on any other radio station, in the midwest or northeast, ever.

I remember a DJ back-announcing Roxy on our classic rock station, presumably to help endear them to Van Halen fans: "'Virginia Plain' - one of the many, many women Bryan Ferry has known over the years!"

In the early '90s Ferry and Bowie were wiped off American radio. I heard "Jump They Say" and "I Put a Spell on You" on my college station a couple times, dat's dat. They simply didn't fit the times. By 1997, though, Bowie had reclaimed much of his aura. Ferry, though -- my friends would nod sympathetically when I mentioned or played him, wondered why the 2001 concert DVD I got for Xmas excited me so. I don't know how anyone between 1995 and 2010 discovered Roxy Music; I had to rely on microfiche/microfilm in the uni library.

I don't know how anyone between 1995 and 2010 discovered Roxy Music

Well, Lost In Translation and Velvet Goldmine, plus Virgin's Roxy/Ferry reissue campaign for starters...

It probably came down to the critics. Greg Kot wrote about them in the Tribune when he could - there weren't really any news events to give him reason to, so when he did, it was usually some broad feature related to rock music like one of those user-friendly guides for beginners that mainstream publications would periodically do. I think I mentioned an old list of "100 Greatest CD's" by EW I found that I actually used as a library loan guide. IIRC Avalon was on there, so that was my first exposure to them, but the occasional Trib article and The New Rolling Stone Album Guide pointed me to the rest. IIRC The RS guide was really big on Siren and Kot preferred the two Eno albums.

*the critics too

Plus the Roxy reunion tour in 2001. It probably didn't make them brand-new fans, but it kept their hat in the ring. They didn't seem like underdogs at the show I saw.

I think I mentioned an old list of "100 Greatest CD's" by EW I found that I actually used as a library loan guide. IIRC Avalon was on there, so that was my first exposure to them, but the occasional Trib article and The New Rolling Stone Album Guide pointed me to the rest. IIRC The RS guide was really big on Siren and Kot preferred the two Eno albums.

In the miserable desert of the early '90s I remember these appearances (and used former ILM poster Mark Coleman's RS guide), but these are critics. I meant, like, fans. I was going to mention Velvet Goldmine but it and 10,000 Maniacs' somnolent hit cover of "More Than This," but both were too early.

I do remember Velvet Goldmine but I didn't bother seeing it for a long time due to poor word of mouth (like "too bad he couldn't use Bowie songs like he originally planned"). I didn't realize they used Roxy Music's songs, but the movie was a flop so I doubt it made that many new fans.

it's terrible

(it is better than that Stardust movie that recently came out though).

there was a daniel craig movie several years back called "Flashbacks of a Fool" which has roxy and ferry as major plot points, even dressing craig up as ferry. but it didn't do very well I suppose.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/4e9d6465fb46296ad8b916cf2da6ce80/tumblr_pa6123LPAE1wbvw5fo2_400.gif

oh I guess it was the actor who plays Craig's character when younger. anyway here you go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f09xX7-Kos