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Bryan Ferry - The Master Of Surprises!!
by Jeremy Ruane
A sell-out crowd at Auckland's Civic Theatre on Saturday, January 31, welcomed Bryan Ferry back to a city he last graced in October 1988.
I was the lone fan to greet him at the airport when he arrived on that occasion - the only other person there was a newspaper photographer!! Suffice to say, I was more than delighted to learn late last year that he would be visiting here again, and when the decision was made to switch his second concert from Wellington to Auckland, tickets were duly snapped up for both concerts without a second's hesitation!! (It's not every day you get the chance to see the personification of class and style performing in person, eh?!)
The Saturday concert was graced by plenty of Bryan Ferry / Roxy Music die-hards, and we had a ball!! The Master didn't disappoint us, and came up with any number of surprises throughout the nineteen-song collection, as well as in the three-song encore.
The surprises started from the moment the lights went down - who else but Bryan Ferry could commence a concert with a harp solo? Julia Thornton's fingers plucked, twirled, strummed and tapped with precision - she is as immensely talented as she is gorgeous, this lass, whom I first came across at the Sydney concert on Roxy Music's world tour in 2002.
As Julia briefly exited stage left, the man we were all there to see slipped on to the stage from the other side, plonked himself down on the Steinway and ripped into "The Only Face", off the Mamouna album, with Louise Peacock on violin providing the lone accompaniment to Bryan's keyboard work.
From this, it was a move to centre-stage for The Master, with the twinkle-fingered Colin Good commandeering the ivories for the rest of the evening. His first notes introduced "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right", with Bryan swiftly moving through the vocal gears and whipping out the harmonica to good effect also.
Chris Spedding joined the team on stage next, with Julia back on the harp for a beautiful rendition of "Carrickfergus". The arrivals of Iain Dixon on saxophone and The Great Paul Thompson heralded a splendidly performed "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" - both songs were extremely well received by the knowledgeable Saturday night crowd.
Following a sax solo with piano and drum accompaniment (to enable the "techies" to remove the harp from the stage), Bryan returned with the other members of the band - Mick Green (guitar), Mark Smith (bass), and backing vocalists Michelle John-Douglas and Sharon White. With Julia now perched behind the percussion instruments, we were treated to "The Thrill Of It All", swiftly followed by "Cruel".
Then came a real surprise, although given the weather around New Zealand's North Island this weekend, it shouldn't have been - Bryan performed "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" with gusto aplenty!!
Following this was a real treat for real Bryan Ferry die-hards. Hands up those who remember the names of some of the songs which missed the cut for "The Bride Stripped Bare" album? If you said "Broken Wings", well done - and this rendition certainly was!
From the soft tones of that rare gem, the mood changed to the grunty, growling "Casanova", then to the classic "Out Of The Blue", with a rip-roaring violin solo from Louise to conclude it - not quite note-perfect, but for the first concert of 2004, more than a passable rendition!! (Her Sunday night attempt was all but spot-on!!)
"My Only Love" was next up, after which a change of suit for Bryan was called for. From an all-black ensemble, he re-emerged in all-grey, but not before a stunning rendition of "Tara" had been performed by Iain, Colin, Louise and Chris, with the interchanging between saxophone, violin and the delightful addition to this instrumental of
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Spanish guitar marking this as something special.
"Kiss And Tell" was followed by "Jealous Guy", which was, of course, extremely well received - whistling solo especially! A fitting follow-up was "Slave To Love" - on both of these songs, the backing vocalists were in particularly fine form.
It wouldn't be a Bryan Ferry concert without "Virginia Plain", with the crowd doing their duty with plenty of oomph when completing the vocals. This was followed by the final song of the set - they were rocking in the aisles well before the first notes of "Love Is The Drug" cascaded around the theatre.
A brief departure brought much trampling of feet on wooden floorboards - we wanted more, and Bryan and the crew duly delivered. "Let's Stick Together" was outstanding, with lengthy solos from Iain, Chris and Bryan on harmonica supplementing a song which was made popular again in New Zealand during the last couple of years, when it was used as a rallying song for the natives in an advertising campaign for the All Blacks rugby team!
The surprises weren't over, either. You won't find "Woolly Bully" (sp.?) on any Bryan Ferry back catalogue - at least as far as I'm aware - but it went down a treat, especially the sax work on what was the penultimate song of the evening.
The finale was a total wind-down from the cranked-up pace of the last few songs, and an audience ranging in age from teenagers right through to seventy-somethings were hearty in their applause in appreciation of an outstanding concert, following its fitting conclusion with a rendition of "Goodnight Irene".
All in all, a cracking concert, with all those on stage performing to the standards expected by the man who continues to revise and upgrade those which are the benchmark for the masses.
While Saturday's concert was attended by the wise, Sunday night's attendees, sadly, weren't so musically astute - aside from pockets of Roxy fans here and there in the theatre, there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm in other areas of the audience, which made it hard going for a band strutting its stuff exceedingly well.
All except for Mick Green, unfortunately. His first guitar solo, during "Thrill", was flawless, but he never got the chance to perform another one, as he collapsed on stage during the next song, "Cruel". As I type, there is no word on his condition.
The show had to go on, however, with Chris Spedding holding the evening together superbly, given all the guitar work was now his responsibility. The circumstances meant there were a couple of alterations to the set from the previous evening, starting with the very next song following Mick's premature departure from the stage.
Don't you just love Bryan Ferry's wicked sense of humour? Cue "Don't Stop The Dance"!!
This replaced "Hard Rain", while two other songs from the Roxy era were summoned and performed, like "Don't Stop" and the other numbers, without a beat being skipped or a note out of place. "My Only Love" succumbed to "Both Ends Burning", while "Kiss And Tell" was dropped, and all subsequent songs in the main set moved up one, to accommodate an old friend to finish - "Do The Strand" was ample proof that "You can't beat Strand Power!!"
It was a real treat to see The Master in town again. He remains, at least for me, the standard by which all other musicians are judged - hence The Master. Given he turns sixty next year - you'd never guess it, such is his on-stage energy and vitality - this may well be the last time he graces these shores.
If it proves to be his last visit to Auckland, what more can one say but thankyou very much, Bryan Ferry, for three of Auckland's truly great concerts - October 25, 1988, and January 31 and February 1, 2004.
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