VIVA! ROXY MUSIC

This is the first live effort for Roxy. Since Roxy decided to put a hold on their career as a band after the Siren tour early 1976, their record company (Island) released this live album to fill the gap.

It was recorded during three sets of concerts at different moments of their career : Glasgow Apollo (2nd November 1973), Newcastle City Hall (27th / 28th October 1974) and Wembley Empire Pool (17th / 18th October 1975). Therefore it lacks in consistency. I mentioned already in my review for the Tull that I prefer live albums that are recorded form one concert only. It gives a better feeling of a particualr atmosphere.

Some tracks are great : "Out Of The Blue", "Pyjamarama", "Both Ends Burning" and "Do The Strand". A special mention to both the opening and the closing numbers of this live album : these renditions are FABULOUS.

Some others are average to good :

"Chance Meeting" with its rather weird atmosphere. Since the track comes out their first album, it just had the global flavour of it. When heard in combination with their later repertoire, it sounds a bit "out of the blue".

"If There Is Something" expanded to over TEN minutes !, and "In Every Dream Home A Heartache" almost double in lenght versus the studio version. These songs are good ones but I would prefer having other numbers instead (you know like "Virginia", "Editions Of You", "Street Life", "A Song For Europe", "The Thrill of It All", "Prairie Rose", "Whirlwind" and of course "Love Is The Drug").

Instead, we'll get "Bogus Man", which is a bit shorter here than in the studio version. This is fine since it is a quite repetitive number.

I guess that the tracklist could have been more impressive but we'll have to live with this one. Originally this album would have been a double one (which I would have rather prefer). There are very few (to none) interaction with the audience. But Bryan was not a specialist of the genre I must say : I have seen him twice with Roxy live and once in his solo tour. He was not really putting too many efforts in this exercise. The numbers and that's it ! In terms of music, of course, it was very good (the Roxy ones, at least).

This album will only reach the twentieth spot in the UK charts (I guess the tracklist is involved in this rather poor ranking). Three stars.