Reviews

61-year-old Ferry looked and sounded every part the lean, mean singing machine that has notched up more than 40 entries in the UK singles chart since Roxy Music's ground breaking debut Virginia Plain some 35 years ago.

Tracks from Dylanesque featured heavily in the set

Opening with a superb rendition of The 'In' Crowd, Ferry was in fine voice throughout. In fact, the live versions of tracks from his latest album Dylanesque sounded a good deal better than the studio recordings which, in common with Ferry's last few albums, are a little on the bland side.

As ever in a Ferry solo show there were lots of surprises. For example the self-penned songs he performed from his 1978 album The Bride Stripped Bare and his beautiful Roxy album track Just Like You which graced the Stranded LP.

It was incredibly well rehearsed and I really believe the show overall suffered as a result. At times it felt like a studio session played out in front of 1800 people with very little interaction between Ferry and his mostly middle-aged audience.

An hour into the set the show stepped up a couple of gears with a storming version of A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall followed by Love Is The Drug and the encore Let's Stick Together. Prior to that Ferry had barely broken into a sweat as he attempted to stay as cool as fcuk, or should that be M & S.

In the end I couldn't help feeling Bryan had short changed his customers. Most would have expected to hear a fair few Roxy Music classics but instead they mostly got an overview of his solo career with a bias towards his Dylanesque CD.

This was a show for the diehards.