He Can Still Do It You Know

There was a period of ten minutes one July Wednesday back in 1972 when Bryan Ferry was the epitome of cool - then Bowie released his Ziggy Stardust album and our cool-ometer swung a different way. Roxy Music as a band were one of those groups who really did follow their own path - musically and stylistically there wasn't another British act that came close for a couple of years. After the release of their first album and their first single Virginia Plain, with its quiet opening that had everybody reaching for the volume control only to be blown away when the correct volume kicked in, Eno got bored and went off and concentrated on his ambient sounds and later helping make Bono the most annoying Irishman ever.

Bryan Ferry swapped his glittery suit and donned a dinner jacket and whilst he would stay the frontman for Roxy for another decade musically he was looking backwards and moving away from pop stardom into lounge lizard territory. I saw Roxy at the NEC back in 1982 on the first of their comeback tours and they were musically very good but their sound didn't suit the aircraft hangar surroundings.

Anyway Ferry is back, a new album, a mini tour and last night his concert from St.Lukes, London was shown on BBC1. The first thing that struck me was that Bryan is certainly doing his bit for the musician's union and keeping its members in gainful employment, in his band he had four guitarists, a keyboard player, a sax player, drummer, two backing singers and a young lady on viola. Ferry ran through his back catalogue, added some new numbers from his forthcoming album and finished with Jealous Guy - during which he seemed to go off on his own way during the whistling bit.

It was very much the Ferry of old - no song introductions, no speaking to the audience, except to introduce his band and no acknowledgment (until the end) of his audience. What he did show though was that he still has tremendous presonality through his work, a good voice and a penchant for dodgy suits.