His orchestra (for want of a better term) has gradually assembled –
first up was the entrance of a five-man horn section; all neatly done up to the
nines in Dinner Jackets and perfectly prepared bow ties along with a
double-bass player (who gives the impression of being let out of school for
evening) who’s own dickie-bow is being worn almost as an after thought.
There is a guitarist cum banjo-player sporting a moustache that resembles one much
favoured by 70’s footballers backed by a veteran drummer hidden away behind an
alarmingly sized bass drum, a number of shell-like cow bells and a couple of elderly
cymbals.
They’d been toe-tapping out sinuously re-imagined Dixieland
arrangements of some of the main man’s main tunes to the cue of the grey-grizzle-haired
pianist who doubles as MD for the evening before yet another drummer appears.
She
adjusts her micro-skirt while (carefully) positioning herself behind her own kit
centre stage as two backing singers appear in what might be construed as
cocktail dresses – although, frankly, I’ve never been to a drinks party where
that kind of attire is considered legal.
They rev up by ooohing, aaaahing and
sashaying in simpatico with the massed ranks of clarinets, saxophones, trumpets
and trombones; tonight the roaring twenties are being re-positioned way beyond
the jazz age.
Next up is a guitarist who has obviously been studying hard
at the Brian Jones school of hairdressing: he looks about sixteen, shoegazes
while tuning up his Les Paul and prepares for action so languorously that he
gives the impression of someone who’s wandered onto the wrong stage – his nod
to more conventional evening attire sported by the rest of the ensemble is a
jacket worn with the lapels turned inward.
The bass player and moustachioed
guitar/banjo-picker swap acoustic for electric as the lady drummer counts four to
the bar by cracking her sticks together much like pistol-shots sound in an
enclosed space… and… all of a sudden, the orchestra is in full swing: it’s a
bit like listening to a thoroughbred Maserati change gear.
Within moments, the curtain back stage-right has twitched
and… there the main man is, sidling up the microphone in a soft-shoe shuffle
like no other; he grips the mic-stand with his right hand, tips it slightly sideways
and, with his left hand clicking the time signature behind him, leans into his
first vocal of the night.
But… wait a moment… lets go back a bit, in fact to Saturday
May 28th 1972. A bank holiday weekend spent in Lincolnshire – or,
more specifically, at the Great Western Express Festival; a three day event
held near the village of Bardney some ten miles or so away from and more or
less due east of the Cathedral. True to bank holiday type, it tipped down for a
good proportion of the duration.
And, after the debacle of trying to get to Glastonbury the
year previous – when, after inadvisably partaking of rather too much of my pal
Horace’s finest Jamaican stash en route to the West Country we ended up in
Wales – we did… eventually… make it to Lincoln this time.
I’ve no recollection of seeing Smith Perkins & Smith,
Gnidrolog, Capability Brown or Jade Warrior who played in one of the tents;
maybe it blew down – within a matter of hours of tipping up the place was a mud
bath and, on the second night my tent was stolen: Saturday and Sunday night
were spent huddled up in my Afghan Coat underneath the Mini-Van in which we’d
travelled.
By the end of the
weekend my fashionably scrotum-constricting crushed velvet, hugely flared
purple loon-pants were ruined. And, inevitably, we broke down on the M1
motorway on the return leg.
Even so, the delights on offer were pretty serious for those
of us whose weekly edition of the Melody Maker provided (so we thought) nearly
the level of knowledge Moses had acquired after he reappeared clutching his
stone tablets: Joe Cocker (who was so refreshed on the night in question that
he had to be held upright by one of his backing singers – when he actually
sang, his hand and arm-propeller movements kept him more or less erect); the
sublime Head Hands & Feet – little did I know that this would be one of
their last performances with Albert Lee about to quit and join up with Emmylou
Harris; a very young Average White Band and Slade (who I must’ve missed ‘cos I
can’t remember anything about them at all).
There was Vinegar Joe who, like HH&F
must’ve been close to their own end given the on-stage body language between
Robert Palmer and Elkie Brooks; Rory Gallagher – who was six-string-bendingly amazing;
The Sutherland Brothers (with or without Quiver – I can’t remember); Stone The
Crows with Maggie Bell exorcising the ghost of Les Harvey who’d been
electrocuted on stage a few weeks earlier; The Beach Boys – pure class in the
rain when the sun shone both physically and metaphorically while the unexpected
highlight was Sha Na Na – like stepping into the film of Woodstock but with the
benefit of real rain falling.
Opening the proceedings on the Saturday and quite the cure for
my too-many Gauloise-smoked/rough Cider-aided hangover was… Roxy Music. One of
their first shows and quite possibly their Festival début – so, whether the
20,000 or so souls gathered in the drizzle were quite ready for Eno in a full
on Boa-feathered outfit at his nob-twiddling finest, Andy Mackay’s squawking
Sax or Bryan Ferry’s lounge lizard Cole Porter lamenting vocals, its hard to
say.
To me… this was like seeing something from outer space.
Musically – and just as it was hearing (say) Bob Marley or Miles Davis for the
first time – what they did that Saturday lunchtime was other-worldly. Clearly,
Roxy didn’t inhabit the same (musical) planet as Marley or Miles; but, they
were equally out there… quite where I wasn’t too sure… but, it was certainly somewhere
very interesting.
Not long after, my hair has been clipped (a bit) and the
crushed velvet has given way to a nicely conservative three piece suit; I’ve
joined EMI in the lowest of all low sales reps positions and I’m doing whatever
it is I’m meant to be doing in a record shop in Harrow – I can’t remember which
one but it might well have been Harlequin. In walks the Island rep. He’s
wearing jeans and a confident smile. He fishes a new single out of his bag and
plays it to the shop-manager.
While I’m meant to be stocking the shop up on stuff they
don’t want – Manuel And The Music Of The Mountains – I can’t but help but hear:
he’s playing Roxy Music’s first record, Virginia Plain. Not long after that and
despite the fact that EMI distribute Island, I’ve given up my safe pension and
the equally safe suit and have joined the Island sales force. St Peters Square
feels like home.
So… here we all are at Cambridge Corn Exchange; it is full to
the rafters and, six rows back, what’s hitting us straight between the eyes ‘n
ears is better than I dared imagine. I mean, one hardly needed the brain of
Einstein to know this was going to be a good show but… this good? Nah, I didn’t
imagine that.
Obviously, Ferry is aware of his audience; this is a sit down
gig for a start. But, that’s the only safety net: his show could have gone one
of two ways – play the safe card and trot out the hits (and there are many,
very many) which would have left the massed ranks of newly coiffed housewives
delirious or… forego the safe option and… in a sense, challenge us as much as
challenging himself.
The arrangements are more than re-arrangements; the
re-working of songs is like he’s mining a seam of material that has little
nuggets hidden away, previously covered in… stuff. Suddenly, they’re exposed
and his songs start to breathe and amass a new life all of their own. The transformation is genuinely
remarkable.
It’s as if Ferry has taken his canyon of a catalogue and said
to himself… ‘y’know what… I’m going to have a bit of a play with these tunes,
have a bit o’ fun.’ The direct
opposite of one of the more recent shows I’d seen at the same venue when Steve
Winwood had (unfortunately) settled on the safe option being the wise choice.
Yes, there is that peerless voice, the superlative playing – that’s all a given
with a musician of his calibre… but… ultimately, it was all a bit… the same as
the time before… and the time before that.
And Ferry’s reinvention process hasn’t exactly been hindered
by some of the best players I’ve seen in years. The lady drummer hits so hard
and so accurately that one has the impression she wouldn’t be the first person
one’d like to encounter after imbibing nine pints of Scruttocks Old Derisible down
a dark alley after closing time.
The interplay between shaven headed sax player
#1 (who doubles on keyboards) and shaven headed sax player #2 is astounding –
watching their combined eye-trajectory is an abject lesson in eyebrow raising; one
twitch of the latter leads to miniscule fills that are so, so subtle yet within
the whole are just… right.
Neither is the bass sax player who doubles on
clarinets various a slouch either – he looks like the kind of bloke who’d take
on a crumhorn without so much as a second thought.
A quarter of the way through the show and the bass-player’s wrap-around
bow-tie has found a new home, directly under his right ear. Ferry’s meantime, just
dangles… Bryan is old school – he can tie a tie. Properly. Oh… and the jacket he wore in the first
half – show me a man in the audience who wouldn’t have maxed-out his credit
card for that or a wife who’d not have approved of the transaction.
And… the man can dance. He’s downright dangerous – the sort of chap
who you really do not want to meet at a wedding… y'know – when the dancing starts and
the dads all get up and trudge about embarrassingly somewhat akin to the Hairy
Biker on that Strictly dirty (obviously rigged) Dancing BBC programme. Ferry
really does have all the moves; he may well be nearer 70 than his Byronesque
looks suggest but, trust me – his footwork is something to behold.
There really isn’t much to complain about – other than… why
on earth break the show midway through? There’s really no need for the
half-time oranges – although the bar did a roaring trade in Gin and Dubonet,
plastic pints of IPA and ice-cream… Ice cream? Yeah, not that rock ’n roll an
audience.
As much as the first part of the show cranked it up toward the
break, so the second half had to all over again – meaning momentum was lost;
even so, the home run was a delight and finally the good (but staid) burghers
of Cambridge actually got up from the safety of their seats and… danced.
The
final section included a heart-stopping Carickfergus, a stellar Jealous Guy
that out-Lennon-ed the best Beatle, a scorching Sam ‘n Dave’s Hold On I’m
Coming; there was Editions Of You during which Ferry worried a keyboard so much
it was like watching a ferret having just grabbed a rabbit by the neck. He
closed with a harmonica infused Lets Stick Together and that was pretty much it
– he just walked off, nodding his head, clicking his fingers to the beat. Sheer
class.
When the band were introduced, one or two of the names I got, most
I didn’t. I inquire of Tiggles B the name of the Brian Jones look-a-like
guitarist; he’s been exemplary all night. She’s unsure… ‘Oliver someone or
other, I think.’ The house lights come up and it doesn’t look like there will
be an encore – the perfectly-coiffed gather up their Barbour jackets en masse and
head for the exit. Drat.
Please sir, may I have some more…
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