📰 Roxy a Nice Touch‑Article : Nov. 1972

A stylish, sharp‑eyed Sounds review capturing Roxy Music bringing their art‑rock glamour, eccentricity, and sonic daring to Manchester’s Hardrock.

Sounds

Date: November 18, 1972

Length: 4 min read

A moment of elegance, experimentation, and early‑era Roxy mystique.

📰 Key Highlights

• Roxy Music perform at Manchester’s Hardrock

• Bryan Ferry’s theatrical presence anchors the show

• Band praised for originality, texture, and unpredictability

• Audience reaction mixed but fascinated

• Early glimpse of Roxy’s art‑rock identity taking shape

📰 Overview

This *Sounds* concert review from November 18, 1972 finds Roxy Music in their first flush of fame, bringing a strange and seductive new energy to Manchester. Reviewer Steve Peacock frames the night as a collision of art‑school imagination and rock‑club grit — a band still forming its identity but already unmistakably different from anything else on the circuit.

📰 Source Details

Publication / Venue: Sounds

Date: November 18, 1972

Format: One‑page concert review

Provenance Notes: Based on the original Sounds report by Steve Peacock.

📰 The Story

The review opens with the writer navigating the Hardrock’s cavernous atmosphere before Roxy Music take the stage. From the moment Bryan Ferry appears — poised, dramatic, and slightly aloof — the tone is set. Peacock describes the band’s sound as a shifting collage: jagged guitar, swirling synth textures, saxophone bursts, and Ferry’s crooning baritone threading it all together.

The performance is portrayed as both stylish and deliberately awkward, a kind of controlled chaos that keeps the audience guessing. Peacock notes that not everyone in the room knows what to make of Roxy’s art‑rock approach, but the band’s confidence and originality win over much of the crowd.

The review highlights the interplay between Ferry’s theatrical delivery and the band’s adventurous arrangements, suggesting that Roxy Music are carving out a new space in British rock — one where glamour, irony, and experimentation coexist.

📰 Visual Archive

• Black‑and‑white photograph of Bryan Ferry performing

• Bold headline: “Roxy a Nice Touch”

• Classic early‑’70s Sounds layout with boxed subheading

• Single‑column review capturing the atmosphere of the Hardrock show

Roxy Music in ’72 — stylish, strange, and already reshaping the possibilities of rock performance.

📰 Check out the tags at the bottom of the post.

📰 Closing Notes

This Sounds review stands as an early testament to Roxy Music’s unique power — a band unafraid to be elegant, eccentric, and entirely their own.

#RoxyMusic #BryanFerry #Sounds #1972 #ArtRock #ManchesterHardrock

📝 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.

IT WAS quite a relief to find a full hall when I got to the Manchester Hardrock Thursday night. In fact it was quite a relief to find the Hardrock at all after a long grind up the M1/M6 and through the suburbs of Manchester in the pouring rain but that's the road for you.

ROXY A NICE TOUCH TOUCH

Last time I was at the Hardrock there weren't many people there at all, and the atmosphere was a little flat and desultory; but this time there was energy in the air half the hall full of people in seats, quiet but expectant, the other half jammed with people squatting on the floor, rather rowdier and screaming for Eno.

It's easy to forget how important an audience is to how a band performs especially when you trek round to a lot of gigs in the role of reviewer. People expect that by tradition you are impartial and objective, but it's virtually impossible to take account of the music in isolation at a gig, and I'm sure if Roxy had been able to play in exactly the same way to a smaller and less responsive audience I wouldn't have en-joyed them half as much. Of course, they wouldn't have played the same way, SO there's that to take into account too.

But anyway, what I'm' trying to say was that it was good to find the Hardrock determined to enjoy its night out, and to find Roxy willing and able to supply what they wanted. I got there just ahead of the band, milled around for a while until the strains of their introduction music which is a beautiful piece to use, lured me into the concert arena.

They sound better every time I hear them, and as I'm sure I've said before, a few months on the road has given them a sureness and tightness of feel that has changed them from a rather loose bunch of musicians with a lot of ideas, into an imaginative band. The songs now come over much stronger than they do on the album, and stronger than on other gigs I've seen.

And they're looking good well groomed, ex-pensively dressed, and lavishly made-up, they have a sense of style that transcends the tatty, cheapscate "glamour" many of their contemporaries have adopted. Bryan Ferry takes one end of the stage dark colours, wide shoulders, SO and traditional rock and roller's mannerisms facing outwards over his keyboards and occasionally dancing out into the centre of the stage.

The other side belongs to Eno and his table of devices he looks brighter, with streaked blonde hair, wide braces, a hunched stance, and a rather seedier image. The band are between them both in position and appearance.

The PA couldn't quite cope it had a lack of that night definition that in places gave your imagination more work than your ears and the effect of the lighting seemed to be a little low-key, but there was a lot to enjoy. The numbers were familiar things like "Would You Believe", Ladytron", “2 HB", "If There Is Something", "The Bob" and "Sea Breezes" and they know what they're doing as far as running orders are concerned. "Re-Make/Re-Model" ended the set, with everyone getting a little blow in the stop-time breaks, but they hadn't done "Virginia Plain" by then, so an encore was inevitable. Bryan's mock surprise was a nice touch, but they would have got called back anyway.

ROXY MUSIC, Manchester Report by Steve Peacock