📰 Roxy on the Road - Article : Jan. 1974

Music Scene

Date: January 31, 1974

Length: 4 min read

A detailed two-page feature on Roxy Music’s live shows and the contrasting reactions they were receiving from fans and the press in early 1974.

Fanatical audience devotion meets a surprisingly cool critical response.

📰 Key Highlights

• In-depth look at Roxy Music’s recent UK tour

• Strong fan support described as “fanatical”

• Notable divide between audience enthusiasm and press criticism

• Examination of the band’s peculiar position at the time

• Early 1974 snapshot of Roxy Music’s rising but divisive reputation

📰 Overview

Published on January 31, 1974, this *Music Scene* article explores Roxy Music during a transitional phase. While the band continued to draw intense loyalty from their growing fanbase on the road, critics remained reserved, creating an interesting tension around one of glam rock’s most stylish and artistic acts.

📰 Source Details

Publication / Venue: Music Scene

Date: January 31, 1974

Format: Two-page feature

Provenance Notes: Original 1974 Music Scene magazine spread.

📰 The Story

The piece highlights that despite strong and enthusiastic audience reactions on their recent tour, the press response had been noticeably cool. Fans packed venues and showed fervent support, yet many critics held back their approval. The article examines this contrast and Roxy Music’s unique position in the British music scene at the start of 1974.

📰 Visual Archive

Two-page magazine spread with multiple black-and-white photos of Roxy Music performing live, including shots of Bryan Ferry and other band members on stage. Bold headline “Roxy on the Road” across the top.

📰 Related

For more similar posts, check out the tags at the bottom of the page.

📰 Closing Notes

This 1974 feature captures Roxy Music at a fascinating moment — adored by their fans and stylistically ahead of the curve, yet still facing a reserved music press as they carved out their influential place in glam and art-rock history.

#RoxyMusic #BryanFerry #GlamRock #MusicScene #1974 #ArtRock

📝 Copyright Notice

All magazine scans, photographs, and original text excerpts referenced in this entry remain the property of their respective copyright holders. This Chronicle entry is a transformative, non-commercial archival summary created for historical documentation and educational reference. No ownership of the original material is claimed or implied.

Published in the UK on January 31, 1974, Music Scene magazine’s two-page article “Roxy on the Road” examined Roxy Music’s peculiar situation in recent months. The piece noted that while the band’s support from fans remained as strong as ever — with the reception on their recent tour described as fanatical to say the least — the response from the press had been as cool as the fans were heated.

Article Text

ROXY MUSIC have found them-selves in a very strange position in the past few months. Their support from fans is as apparent as ever the recер-tion that they were accorded on the recent tour was fanatical to say the least, but the response from the press was as cool as that of the fans was heated.

The trouble as far as can be ascertained, can be traced back to the Eno split which left a ve very bitter taste in some people's mouths. All very well, but people seem to have forgotten that it takes two to cause an argument no one will ever know the full story, but there is no doubt that Eno must have been at least partly to blame.

A lot of people resented the sudden rise to fame that Roxy achieved despite the cries of 'Hype', still nobody shouted too loud, after all it was hip to dig Roxy. The Eno split was an ideal opportunity to whip out the knives and have a quick stab. That was not enough however for some people - the next chance they got to have a snipe was the opening night of the recent Roxy Tour.

That tour opened at The Queens Hall in Leeds. Now, no disrespect to Leeds in-tended, but to put it bluntly, The Queens Hall is one of the worst venues in the country. It is a big aircraft hanger of a place, with nasty booming acoustics, no atmosphere and very poor sightlines. To compound their problems, it was the first gig that Roxy had played for some time and

there were two new men in the line-up. Roxy had used ace bassist Johnny Gus-

taffson for their new album "Stranded", but he was contracted to do a tour with Shawn Phillips coinciding with the Roxy Tour. Consequently the band had to look around for someone to play with them. They finally chose a New Yorker called Sal Maida. Leeds was also the first appearance for new member Eddie Jobson, at least Eddie had the advantage that he had worked with the band on the new album.

But when you get down to it, it is the fans that matter; they are the ones that buy the albums and ultimately determine whether the band achieves longevity. And they have been going barmy. Bryan Ferry has become a scream idol. I asked guitarist Phil Manzanara whether this worries the band "We are not worried about screamers in principal, but on this tour we seem to be getting screamers irrespective of what we play. Some towns have more screamers than others, obviously kids have got to get rid of their frustrations and emotions in some way. There are always the kids at the back who want to listen and you can play for them, if I thought that no one was listening then I would be very worried."

It is this reaction that has stopped the band from getting angry about the critical response. Phil admitted that the Leeds gig was not up to standard, he told me that out of the five gigs that they had played up until this interview took place, three were good, while the other two were for various reasons not so good. Phil pointed out that the band had only been able to manage three days of rehearsals before the tour, they had been finishing off the album right

up until the last minute. The album, I was told is the bands finest

achievement to date, Phil told me "For Your Pleasure" had less ideas than the first album, but they were full blown. "Stran-ded" has different ideas, it explores differ-ent musical forms, whereas "For Your Pleasure" concentrated on new sound ideas and textures. There is one track on the new album "Psalm" that starts off like a Welsh hymn and finishes with a New Orleans feel. I don't think that it is what people expect from us, but I think that we have pulled it off.

The new album certainly shows Roxy in a new light, without losing any of the essen-tial Roxiness that characterises the band. Eddie Jobson has certainly made little dif-ference to the sound. I asked Phil why they hadn't given Eddie a lot of freedom. "We came to realise that there were certain things in the sound that made Roxy what it is and we intend to carry them through. We didn't want to suddenly appear with a com-bination of Jean Luc Panty and Rick Wake-man.

"We will of course bring Eddie in more, but he is very young he is also a very good technician, but the trouble with people like that is that because they can play everything they don't know what not to play. In a couple of years time he will be incredible, he's very talented he just needs to listen to the right records. He hasn't heard half of the people that in-fluenced the rest of the band.

Future plans for Roxy include a new single which will be recorded after the current European tour. "We are going to be much more productive from now on" said Phil. Which can only add to our plea-sure.