Bryan Ferry, State Theatre, Saturday, February 25.
The glossy, full-colour program for tonight's performance costs fifteen big ones. Sheesh! But this is probably why most of the people here dig Bryan Ferry in the first place. He's expensive. He's plush. He's fancy.
Charged with producing a low-brow affair called a rock concert, Ferry smothers the whole knees-up in a standard of professionalism not seen since the old House of Dunhill commercials and winds up with something more spiritually aligned with a performance of "Cats" than an evening with a pop legend.
This is his audience now. Low-level celebrities, a newsreader here, a "Blankety Blanks" star there, Kylie, no jeans in the house. And a "high standard" of "professionalism" is what these people really want. Funny that, as music probably doesn't play much of a role in many of these people's lives.
In fact, Bryan looked remarkably uncomfortable the entire time. He doesn't move with any confidence at all--kind of like an imposter in a Bryan Ferry suit, being careful not to split it.
But then centre stage was not where the show was really happening. The real action was taking place a few feet to Bryan Ferry's right...
Session lead guitarists who began working in the late '70's all have something in common--they feel compelled to pull faces which somehow represent the sounds their guitar is making. For example, when hitting a high, screeching note, the "I-just-sat-on-a-branding- iron" face will do just fine. Low, malevolent note? Why not try the "I'm-a-bullfrog-yes-I-am" face. You get the idea?
Well, Bryan Ferry's lead guitarist had such behaviour down to a stage show all of its own--a smorgasbord of expressions so ludicrous as to make Mr Bean look like Charles Bronson. For the first fifteen minutes he was most entertaining indeed, but then it got dull and finally infuriating.
Such criticism may seem petty, but ghastly performance rituals like this can ruin a show for the easily distracted.
Even when things got "out of control" (girls abandoned their seating and dashed to the front of the stage, young men tore off their ties and threw them to the floor, all to the rebellious strains of "Avalon"), nothing was even remotely in danger of becoming unpredictable.
Nevertheless, it wasn't really Bryan Ferry who failed. All he is guilty of is falling victim to what we thought he would avoid forever---age. He's just not plugged-in enough anymore to know when he's being badly represented. As a voice, as a star, old Bryan did all right, even if "Do the Strand" sounded like something like Andrew Lloyd Webber might have backed out.
Incidentally, Kylie Minogue's new boyfriend wears sunglasses after the sun has gone down.
Bryan Chow, bryan@loudcloud.com