Roxy Music: The High Road

I saw the video of The High Road on BBC2 sometime in the mid-80s and thought the arrangement of Neil Young's Like a Hurricane was quite good. I also remember marvelling at how Bryan Ferry started out in a smart dinner jacket, and gradually disrobed as the performance went on, ending with open-necked dress shirt with bow tie still draped around his neck — but at every stage of increasing dishevelment and (let's face it) sweat, he somehow continued to look immaculate.

Obviously it was the former impression that led me to buy the record. I'm not sure if this is the same performance as on the video. It doesn't quite have the punch that I remembered from the video, but maybe it was just the backing singers flailing their arms around that added to the visual impact.

I recently discovered from Sid Smith's book on King Crimson that Crimson were Roxy's support act for the filmed performance: it was on 26 August 1982 at Arena Cap D'Agde in France, and Crimson's show was recorded too. [Update: according to Wikipedia, the album was recorded in Glasgow, also in August '82, but a different show from the one I saw on the TV.]

D and I went to see Roxy at Sheffield Arena in 2001. We were on the guest list, because at the time Huw was still managing Rosalie Deighton. Tim and M were also on the guest list, because Paul was doing keyboard tech for Roxy. And Richard Kirk and Ian Anderson were in the row behind us. I can't remember much about the gig, except that they didn't focus just on the smooth, later stuff (as on this record): they started with a song from the first album, and they had a very pretty woman doing all the Eno know twiddling bits. I think Chris Spedding did a solo song, too. And then we went for a drink in the Casbah.

MusicBrainz entry for this album