Perfect gentleman
Charles Spencer
On the rare occasions when I dip a tentative foot into the social whirl I almost always regret it. In the old days I almost invariably got embarrassingly drunk, and in sobriety I find it damn near impossible to get into the party spirit. There is something about sparkling mineral water that puts a dreadful dampener on things. Was anyone ever witty on Perrier? But at least I no longer wake up in a panic at five in the morning with a dry mouth, a pounding heart and mortifying, if blurry. recollections of the night before.
I suspect all reformed drunks have their own particular memories of appalling behaviour under the influence of alcohol that still bring them out in a cold sweat years after the event, and one of mine concerns Bryan Ferry, once memorably described as 'the coolest living Englishman'.
The Daily Telegraph had taken a table at a ridiculously lavish, star-laden fund-raiser for the Royal Court. I think Madonna was there, and Mick Jagger, and the whole event was being sponsored, rather implausibly, by the terrifying ice-maiden Tina Brown, then in her Queen of Manhattan heyday as editor of the New Yorker. I'd written a mildly mocking preview piece about the hash, wondering what the Royal Court's lefty playwrights would make of such a glitzy occasion, and when I was introduced to Ms Brown she regarded me as if I were something nasty she'd just trodden in. Worse still, the event had been organised by Nicholas Hytner's mother, and I'd been rude about her too. My deputy editor was at the same table as Hytner, now director of the National Theatre, and he told her in no uncertain terms that he wanted to punch me on the nose.
In those days when the going got tough, I got going on the bottle, and with several litres of red wine on board I was bursting with boozy bonhomie. Spotting Ferry across the crowded room, looking as cool and immaculate as ever, I decided that what he really needed now was the benefit of my career advice.
'Where did it all go wrong, Bryan?' I slurred, bathed in sweat and with my vast belly bursting out of my too-tight dinnerjacket trousers. Ferry looked suitably modest and concerned. 'I mean those first three terrific albums with Roxy Music, then the great comeback with Avalon, and since then only overproduced dross.'
Since Ferry had somehow resisted the temptation of either telling me to sod off or kicking me in the balls, I blundered on. 'I think your problem, Bryan,' I added with horrid intimacy, 'is that you're too much of a perfectionist. All that time fiddling around in the studio, when what you really need to do is just get a few good tunes together and simply bash them out. I mean you did the first two Roxy albums in less than a year.' Ferry smiled with sad tolerance and conceded that perhaps I had a point. In fact, he couldn't have been more charming, and after a few more minutes of offensively drunken babbling on my part, and heroic good manners on his, I sauntered cheerily away in the firm conviction that I'd done him a good turn.
The memory has returned to haunt me again in recent weeks, because I've been listening to Roxy Music Live, a double CD set culled from their recent world tour, and it's absolutely blinding.
Most reunion tours are take the money and run affairs, but the musical standards here are incredibly high, with many of the songs sounding better in these new live versions than they did on the original albums 30 years ago. Roxy Music brilliantly married retro pop with futuristic electronics to create music that is still fabulously exciting, and eerily undated, today.
And. my God, the tunes were good. Has there ever been a more exuberantly fresh and original debut single than 'Virginia Plain'? Or a more recklessly exciting debut album opener than 'Re-make Re-Model'? Or a more brilliant pop portrayal of chilling decadence than 'In Every Dream Home a Heartache', in which the narrator has fallen in love with his inflatable doll? Not in my book there hasn't. And as well as full-on avant-rock, there is also that lovely vein of wistful romantic melancholy in Ferry's work, a worldly-wise, lounge lizard crooner who has seen it all yet somehow retains a touching vulnerability.
There are 22 songs on the new album, all but one of them written or co-written by Ferry. and not a single dud among them. Phil Manzanera's brilliantly versatile guitar playing and Andy Mackay's wonder
ful work on sax, ranging from aching sadness to euphoric yelps, have never sounded better and Ferry is in tremendous voice throughout and clearly having the time of his life. The whole experience, to borrow from one of his own lyrics, is 'deluxe and delightful' and I cannot recommend the album too highly, even though it does make me feel more of a prat than ever.
Charles Spencer is theatre critic of the Daily Telegraph.
Previous page
