Magic and Mystery with the Ghosts Of Roxy Music

What fans want from Bryan Ferry in concert in San Diego

Hoping to catch a glimpse of the glam and glamour of Roxy Music, Jennifer and I went to see the band’s former frontman Bryan Ferry in concert last night in downtown San Diego. It was a night full of magical and mysterious moments. I made a list:

Magical mysterious moment #1:
Before the show we went to dinner at an Indian restaurant a few blocks from the concert hall. We overheard the party of four at the table next to us talking about Ferry. For a moment I’d hoped they were with the show, or friends Ferry’s, and we’d get to hear some dirt. But they were just fans.

A few minutes after they’d left, I heard one of the restaurant staff tell another that one of the four had left their phone behind.

Half an hour later when Jennifer and I walked into the crowded concert hall lobby, I immediately recognized one of our dinner neighbors. I went up to him and said "you were just in the Indian restaurant, right? You or one of your friends left their phone there." He immediately pulled his phone out of his pocket to show me and said "yes, thanks, but I went back and got it".

He had already found his missing phone.

Magical mysterious moment #2:
As soon as he had his phone out to show me he already had it, without missing a beat, the guy said to Jennifer "you just lost an earring—I just saw it fall from your ear." Jennifer felt her ear and he was right, her earring was missing. We all looked down at floor but it wasn't there. Jennifer felt for it in her purse and found it there. It had fallen straight from her ear into her purse.

She already had her missing earring.

Magical mysterious moment #3:
We took our seats, having perfectly timed our dinner and arrival to avoid the opening act, only to realize there was still a half hour intermission before Ferry would take the stage.

Still sitting in our seats ten minutes later, we got a text from our neighbors telling us they’d heard a small dog barking nearby all evening, in the direction of our darkened, isolated house; they thought it was our dog, and were checking if everything was OK. They’d already walked halfway up our long overgrown driveway to check things out, and felt something seemed off. We worried that we'd somehow accidentally locked our dog out of the house and she might be chasing coyotes in the cactus and scrub, or vice versa. I went to the lobby and called our neighbors. They offered to go back to our house and check it out again and let the dog in, if she would let them approach. I told them how to get into our house.

Ten minutes later I called them again. They were just leaving our house. Our dog had been safely inside the entire time, and had just been barking her head off for some reason.

The dog was never outside.

Magical mysterious moment #4:
With the dog drama subsided, I went back into the auditorium, having missed only the mellow opening instrumental, Roxy Music’s "India."

India, like the Indian restaurant.

Magical mysterious moment #5:
I’m not at all familiar with Ferry’s 80s and 90s solo albums or career. But I have been listening to 70s, Brian Eno-era Roxy Music, intently, almost incessantly, for several years. Almost every listening I’m still astonished by Ferry’s vocals and how ambitious and ahead of its time—or out of time—the band’s early sound is.

There were three Roxy Music songs I was hoping Ferry would perform: “If There Is Something,” “Ladytron,” and “Mother of Pearl,” any one of which would have been worth the price of admission.

Ferry performed the one song I most wanted to hear, “If There Is Something”—which maybe should count as three songs in itself. It was great.

But when he introduced it, Ferry said “here's a song from Roxy Music's very first album,” and roughly a quarter of the audience immediately left their seats and headed for the lobby to get some more wine or take a piss or something. WTF? It was weird.

Later, when Ferry started singing “More Than This”, from Roxy Music’s very last album, Avalon, almost the entire house stood up at attention. I had to check with Jennifer: “wait, was this their big hit?”

To be fair, this was a Bryan Ferry concert, not a Roxy Music concert. I shouldn't have been surprised that the crowd wanted more super smooth tuxedo vocals than green eye shadow, leopard skinned drummers, and glitter-gloved spacemen mixing theramins and feedback on old NASA equipment. That stuff was there that night too, at least in spirit, even if I brought a lot of it with me…

Bryan Ferry fans are not necessarily fans of Roxy Music’s early work.

Magical mysterious moment #6:
The very end of the concert was a little odd. After playing “Do the Strand,” Ferry said some pleasantries about the audience and California, then played another song. Then the band left the stage, the lights came up and people started leaving. But it still seemed like there might be an encore. There's going to be an encore, right?

When the stage hands started breaking down the set it was clear the show was over. None of the normal to-do of a typical encore routine, leaving the stage then coming back, etc. What was that about?

When you are a rock star sex symbol in your seventies and you are done singing, you are done, and it's time for bed.

Magical mysterious moment #7:
When we got home the dog was inside and fine. No coyotes, break in, or murder scene. But next to the couch, on the living room floor, I found a bare tomato vine and tomato seeds splattered on the rug. It was all that remained of five or six good-sized tomatoes that had vanished from the kitchen counter.

I think the dog ate them.

Bryan Ferry in concert: 4.5 stars

Cosmo Wenman is CEO of Concept Realizations. He can be contacted at twitter.com/CosmoWenman and cosmo.wenman@gmail.com

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