(this blog was begun the night of August 29, 2019 and completed the next day)
Tonight I went to see Bryan Ferry in concert at The Greek Theatre. For those who may be unaware, Ferry is a legendary figure in the rock world. He was the lead singer and main writer for Roxy Music, a band that - if I had to define the term art rock - I would just put their picture in the dictionary next to the phrase, and leave it at that. I may have already asked the question about Roxy : Just what kind of band were they, anyway?
Were they glam? Were they retro? Were they progressive? Were they Super Rock Stars?
Well, check, check, check and check. They were all four of the above things, But really they were unclassifiable, like all the best bands. For example, into what category would you put The Beatles?
Okay, 'nuff said.
If I had to classify Roxy Music, I'd simply call them Art Rock, and it is interesting (and I just found out) that Bryan Ferry studied fine art in college and since his rise in music he has become a collector of notable paintings. But in 1973, when I first heard Roxy Music and saw their album covers, which stood out as works of art themselves, I knew nothing of his background. I only saw, as we all did, that this was a band that existed wholly in their own universe. They looked and sounded like no one, and vice versa. In order to save me from giving a history lesson, I would ask the uninitiated to check out the first four Roxy Music albums for themselves. While listening to the music, take time to examine the album covers and the lyrics. Yeah, I know that the front covers could now be considered sexist, but try to go beyond that. Look at the pictures of the band, too. Read the words to the songs and take the entire presentation into context. What you will see is that Roxy Music was an artistic concept as well as a band that made some of the most original music of the rock era. But onwards to tonight's concert....
I arrived at The Greek in plenty of time, having encountered little traffic on the freeway. Parking for free off Los Feliz, I walked up the hill to the theatre, with a stop at the box office to straighten out my ticket situation. You see, they have a new "all-digital" ticketing policy that I wasn't aware of when I bought my ticket last January. You don't get a "print at home" option anymore, instead, you have to have an app on your phone to upload the ticket code which will then be scanned at the gate. But I don't have an iPhone, merely a flip phone. "I'm a Cave Man", I told the girl at the box office. She laughed and printed me up an old school ticket after checking my I.D.
Soon I was in my seat. I'd deliberately chosen an awesome seat that I've had the pleasure of sitting in before. It is located in the side terrace, but overlooks the stage near the center. Best of all, the seat is isolated by itself, where the terrace section comes to a point. So it is a single seat "row of it's own". I love it because I've got nobody sitting next to me and no one in front of me. Everyone else is either behind me or across the aisle, so I don't have to worry about beer drinkers who get up after every third song, or big guys sitting on either side of me, or giants in front of me. It's just little ol' me in my own seat in my own row, at the pointed end of the section. And, it's fairly close to the stage, too. I will try to order that seat every time I go to The Greek Theater. :)
It turned out there was an opening act, so I needn't have worried about arriving on time. Her name is Femme Schmidt, a young German woman who speaks California English with only a trace of her native accent. Turns out she used to live here. She sang heartbreak songs accompanied by a guitarist and a lot of reverb and was quite good. You could picture her music in a David Lynch movie.
Bryan Ferry came onstage after a short break, and right away I could see that this concert was going to be a big deal. For one thing, he had a nine piece band : two guitarists (one being the legendary British sideman Chris Spedding), a bass player, a keyboardist, a drummer, an amazing female sax player named Jorja Chalmers, who also doubled on keys, a female violinist, and two backup singers (a man and a woman). Ferry and band started off with "India" and "The Main Thing" from the "Avalon" album, and right away you could hear how dynamic this band was. Their collective ability to recreate every musical detail of the songs, seamlessly but without sounding "canned" was on the level of Pink Floyd or what I imagine David Bowie's live shows must've been like (I never got to see Bowie).
The band was off the charts with a live sound to match. Ferry himself has still got perhaps 80-85% of his vocal range, maybe having lost a little bit of lung power at the lower end, but nothing drastic. He was never a Rock Belter anyway, but always one of the unique voices in music, sounding more like a European cafe singer than anything else, maybe with a touch of Elvis.
He is gonna be 74 next month, and though he mostly looks his age, he looks it in a good way, like a movie star who has maintained his trademark image with just a few crinkles around the eyes.
He has so much charisma, blowing kisses to the crowd after every song. He's like an aristocrat from a 1940s movie, tall, lanky and handsome, and still with all his hair, black suited with an air of dignity. He didn't say much between songs, just a few "thank yous" and "nice to be back in Los Angeles". Instead, he let the music do the talking, and as I remarked to Grimsley in an after-the-concert phone call (Grim did not attend the show), "It was just one great song after another. One classic song after another". Ferry and band played 21 songs in all, with no encore due to the Greek's curfew policy. The show ran a few minutes over, ending at 10:19. He played many of the songs from "Avalon", the final Roxy Music album and one which featured a slower and more hypnotic sound than the band's earlier, more rocking records. But he also played those early songs, too, like "Do The Strand", "Out Of The Blue" (featuring a shredding violin solo that blew the audience away), "Love Is The Drug" and "In Every Dreamhome A Heartache", which Ferry sang almost a capella, accompanied only by a slight keyboard backing. On that song he was lit from below like a madman in a German Expressionist movie. The effect was very dramatic!
All in all, I was pretty much left speechless by the show, because I hadn't expected it to be that good. I mean, I knew it was gonna be good because it was Bryan Ferry, but I hadn't followed him for the past 35 years, and I thought, "well, it'll be good to see him again, even though it's a solo show and not with Roxy Music". But I had no idea it would be state of the art quality, up there with Pink Floyd as far as musicianship and sound goes, and with a gorgeous, colorful light show as an extra bonus.
I thought of my late friend Mike B. The last time I saw Bryan Ferry was in February 1976, at the Hollywood Palladium. He was still with Roxy Music then. Mike and I went behind the stage and snuck up into the catwalk, where we watched the show from a small opening behind the curtains. Though we were behind the band, we could still almost see them in profile, and it was almost like being onstage ourselves. I was 15, Mike 17. We had a blast sneaking around the Palladium that night and we met Eddie Jobson, Roxy's violinist, after the show. It is one of my great concert memories, and I thought of Mike last night and hoped he was watching with me.
So that's my Bryan Ferry review. I sure hope I get to see him again before he retires, because he's still at the very top of his game. When I think that 43 years had passed between the last time I saw him and last night's show at the Greek, it blows my mind. But it also seemed like no time at all had passed.
Ahh, time.........that weird, weird thing.
Life, and time, and our life and times. /////
That's all for now, see you tonight at the Usual "Time"!
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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