By Carron Stacey, A Humdrum Mum

WHEN?: Friday 14 October 2022

Why did I go to watch Roxy Music in a venue that normally I wouldn’t watch bands in? (Except for Soft Cell’s “farewell” gig.) Well, for the same reason. This was their 50th anniversary and farewell tour.

• Read on for reasons including how Roxy Music influenced every band A Humdrum Mum admires

I’m a fan of the hits; there’s lots I don’t know, I left the gig with more questions than answers. But I knew that I had to go.

For reasons of legacy. As a Duran Duran fan from the start when I was 10, I know how important Roxy were to them. Watching John Taylor and Simon Le Bon inducting the band into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, they state that without Roxy, they wouldn’t have existed. 

With seats up in the gods, we had a full on straight view, but were so high up that the musicians’ faces on the screen were distorted by the light rig across them. I never actually got a good view of Ferry himself. The sound however was not distorted.

Their 20-song set list ranged from songs from their Eno era, as I call it (Re-Make/Re-Model, The Bogus Man, Ladytron, If There Is Something and In Every Dream Home a Heartache from the main set), to what I call the Avalon years (Heart Still Beating, Tara, The Main Thing and To Turn You On) with select ones in between (Out of the Blue, Oh Yeah and My Only Love). The prog rock sound shocked me; the sax/guitar almost jazz-off titivated me; the oboe entranced me! I needed this to be a sit down gig as I was drinking it all in. 

After crooning along to Dance Away and Avalon (my childhood radio hits), I was delighted to hear what I called the more upbeat end set: Love is the Drug (made known to me via Grace Jones’ fantastic cover); Editions of You (the mad sax and prog sound); Virginia Plain (even though the man next to me ruined it by shouting the ultimate lyrics of the song over the man I’d paid to hear instead); Jealous Guy (it’s been called saccharine but I love it nostalgically and I did get quite emotional at that point). The last song was, of course, their non-charting single Do the Strand, an Eno era orgy of cheap thrills, guitars and saxophone, with its sudden start and both staccato vocals and piano, and the beat rushing us to its hectic crescendo.

This self-described avant rock group, for me, has influenced every band I admire and some I didn’t know of (Sex Pistols, Madness, Nile Rodgers, Kate Bush, Siouxsie, Adam and the Ants – Gary Tibbs played bass for them – Depeche Mode, Pulp, Human League, Todd Terje and Franz Ferdinand, as well as my beloved Duran Duran – thanks Wiki for that list.)

I knew I’d heard and seen something special, the likes of which we, let alone I, will never see again. My only regret is that they didn’t include my two favourites, Angel Eyes and Same Old Scene. But what a history lesson in one evening! And to hear they may play the afternoon legend slot at next year’s Glasto? Get there and see them!

• Read more from Carron at her blog A Humdrum Mum
• Main picture courtesy via Facebook Tickets Have you heard any of these songs or seen any of these shows? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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