Roxy Music at the O2 review: intoxicating retrospective from a timeless band

Celebrating their 50th anniversary, Roxy Music ended their international tour in style at London’s O2 Arena on Friday night. Their flair for drama and signature glamour are clearly undiminished.

There are few letters and numbers as oddly compelling in pop as CPL 593H, taken from the license plate of a car Brian Ferry spotted in 1972. It wasn’t the vehicle that captivated the young singer, but the beautiful woman driving it, who inspired Re-Make/Re-Model, the first track on Roxy Music’s debut album and the opening number on Friday night. As the bandmates and audience belted the same random characters back and forth, they inspired instant communion.

Re-Make/Re-Model was tailor-made for the stage, with inset solos for each instrument. But it was on the follow-up, Out of the Blue, where the talents of each musician shone most brightly. Phil Manzanera’s guitar was electrifying, locked in a tango with Andy Mackay’s hymn-like saxophone ­– the first of many beatific, out-of-body moments.

Brian Ferry paused the setlist only once to introduce the band, letting the music speak for itself as backing vocalist Phoebe Edwards elevated their songs to new heights. Paul Thompson was thunderous on the drums, launching into an anarchic coup for Do the Strand as Manzanera went equally intense for the final hurrah.

There was hardly a dry eye in the auditorium as the band segued seamlessly from More Than This into Avalon, arguably two of their best remembered hits. But the mood wasn’t nostalgic, as Roxy Music reaffirmed a knack for the experimental and the futuristic; songs like If There is Something could have been recorded yesterday.

That the quartet are now firmly in their 70s should have lent fresh relevance to the repeated lyric “When we were young”. But they really did seem as young as ever; a live band in the prime of life.

Roxy Music’s frontman has always been something of a musical Roger Moore: debonair, glamourous and ineffably British. In his signature tailored suit, he looked especially suave at 77, shifting nimbly from the keyboard to the standing mic. In tune with the band’s poignant, storylike lyrics, the singer is something of a raconteur: he does not sing, in fact, so much as declaim, an elegant bard inviting the audience to join in as he croons with a warm smile.

His tales were supported by impressive visuals on the screens of the O2, drawing on the surrealist imagery of Roxy Music’s album covers: camp flamingos, pop art and pinups. It was an intoxicating retrospective and dizzying reminder of the band’s timeless appeal. As Ferry launched into the first of many encores with Love is the Drug, one thing was clear: for the fans Roxy Music remain the drug of choice.