NOTE: All photos are copyright of Howard Shiau Photography 2025
Take a look at music over the last forty years and it’s hard to even count the number of bands that were either influenced by Roxy Music or were influenced by a band that was influenced by them! One major act that we covered recently, Duran Duran, drew heavily on from Roxy and the New Romantic scene. While Roxy Music have not released a studio album since 1982’s spectacular “Avalon”, lead vocalist Bryan Ferry continued his solo career, with his last studio album “Bittersweet” released in 2018. Here in 2022, at the fiftieth anniversary of their self-titled debut album, Ferry, guitarist Phil Manzanera, drummer Paul Thompson, and saxophonist Andy MacKay have reunited for a tour across North America and the UK. The tour kicked off last night at ScotiaBank Arena in Toronto.
Opening for Roxy Music was acclaimed eclectic rocker St. Vincent (aka Anne Erin Clark). Her performance is very theatrical, like one of her mentors David Byrne of the Talking Heads, but nevertheless no nonsense, going through her songs with little break in between except after the third songs when she thanked Roxy Music for having her on their tour. With the shadow of a skyline as the backdrop, St. Vincent showed why she’s one of the premier guitarists of her generation, with excellent interaction between her and guitarist Jason Falkner, sometimes with one or both falling to the floor as she would be playing either on her knees or on her back!! The backup singers were excellent and would either dance in sync with St Vincent or sometimes just dance unchoreographed as if they were at the greatest party in the world. Highlights were “Pay Your Way in Pain” with St Vincent howling at the crowd, “Slow Disco” with a girl in a waitress uniform dancing on stage?!?!, and the haunting “Cheerleader”. She closed with “Melting of the Sun”, with the whole band singing a capella at the end. Many Roxy Music fans were unfamiliar with St Vincent and were pleasantly surprised and now are very aware.
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As this was the 50th Anniversary Tour celebrating their first record, it was fitting that Roxy Music would open with the first track off that record “Remake/Remodel”. Security had mentioned early on that, given the age of the audience, no one would be standing. They could not have been more wrong. The crowd was up and dancing before the chorus of the first song! Security even had to tell one gentleman that he was not allowed to stand on his chair!! The lighting was dim, very moody although psychedelic at times, especially with the accompanying visuals.
Even though we were celebrating the release of their first album, the setlist only contained three songs from that record and was a good amalgam of their career, with a mix of bigger hits and non-singles, with some of the songs a bit abbreviated. They stayed away from Ferry’s solo work and somehow did not play their first big single “Virginia Plain”! The ballad “Running Wild” from “Flesh and Blood” would also have been nice but the vocals may be a bit high for Ferry at this point in his career. After all, he is about to turn 77!! Nevertheless, the audience seemed very happy with the set, with everyone in the arena getting up and dancing to “Love is the Drug”.
The original band members seem to still be going on strong. I already referred to Bryan Ferry; his voice sometimes seemed not quite as strong as it used to be and, of course, high notes were more difficult but he was helped out by two excellent backup singers. There may not actually be an issue with vocal strength as his style is to often times whisper his lyrics, as if serenading a lover. He seemed just fine on “Same Old Scene”. Guitarist Phil Manzanera was fantastic, nailing solo after solo. There was another guitarist on stage to handle some of the other solo work but that did not take away from what Manzanera did at all. Saxophonist Andy MacKay was also in fine form, surrounded by four saxophones on stage! As with the guitars, there was another saxophonist on stage but most of the solo work was handled by MacKay and his tone was excellent! There was a great showcase of sax and guitar solos on “If There is Something”. Absolutely terrific!! The only original member without a solo was drummer Paul Thompson and we really couldn’t see much of him behind the plastic barrier on stage but Roxy Music’s percussion isn’t designed to be front and center. Rather the drums and bass form the rhythm that blend with the background and Thompson does phenomenally.
When the band played “In Every Dream Home a Heartache”, I was reminded of a St. Vincent interview where she identified this song as one that moved her, although she said that it was “one of the scariest, creepiest, perviest songs I’ve ever heard”!! Roxy Music closed out the show (no one knew there would be no encore) with an absolutely perfect rendition of “Jealous Guy”. Whatever was discussed about Ferry’s voice can be thrown out the window here. He sounded wonderful! While he was regularly waving to people in the crowd, almost as if he was saying goodbye, I don’t think the audience gave the band a proper standing ovation and farewell since they assumed the band would be back out for an encore. Guess we’ll have to wait for the next tour? Hopefully?
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