He Put A Spell On Us...

I went to see Bryan Ferry in concert on Sunday night. And what can I say, except that he was fantastic!

He played to a full house (which included the president of Iceland and his wife along with several of the main politicians of the country). We had excellent seats and loved every single song he performed, although to be fair there were a few that we were not totally familiar with. No matter, they were all great! The absolute highlights for me were the performances of "Jealous Guy", "I Put A Spell On You/Slave To Love", "Love Is The Drug", "Avalon" and "Reason Or Rhyme".



Sadly there was no signing session, although he did sit outside a cafe close to the concert hall on the day of the show and signed autographs for people that happened to walk by (of course I was at that same cafe, just a  few hours later - grrrr). I did however manage to get a tour program....





Ferry arrived in Iceland on Saturday and had a meeting with the current president. He did a few interviews - click here for one of them. He mentioned during one of the interviews that he is currently working on two new albums! Massuer, Dom Perignon champagne and Evian water are said to have been his only backstage requirements. He mentioned in interviews that he planned to check out Reykjavik (especially the art museums) and that he really liked the building that he was playing in.


He played another sold out concert on Monday before leaving the country on Tuesday.






Newspaper Fréttablaðið gave the concert a glowing 5 out of 5 review. Here are parts from it, loosely translated to english:


It was a packed hall that welcomed Bryan Ferry and his band on Sunday night. The first song was "I Put A Spell On You", then the megahit "Slave To Love", followed by "Don't Stop The Dance" and then three Bob Dylan tracks in a row.


There were 13 people on the stage, including dancers and two of Ferry's old pals: Paul Thompson (Roxy Music drummer) and Chris Spedding, who guitar played on several of Ferry's older albums. Other players included the excellent guitar player Oliver Thompson and Jorja Chalmers on saxophone.


Bryan Ferry performed tracks from hiw whole career, including four tracks from his 70's Roxy Music albums, three from Avalon and two from his most recent album, Olympia - total of 21 tracks. The concert was fantastic and filled with highlights. The biggest audience reactions were for hits such as "Love Is the Drug", "Jealous Guy" and "More Than This", but lesser known tracks (arranged to highlight the band) were just as good. These included "My Only Love", "Reason Or Rhyme" and Ferry's version of the Neil Young track "Like A Hurricane". 

Much has been made of the look and style of Ferry through the years, and he looked fantastic on stage. The band was all dressed in black and gold.

The lights and the screen projections were great as well. But what really mattered was the music. The arrangements were authentic, the band was brilliant and a good tracklist, although old fans such as myself felt that a couple of songs were missing form the setlist. Ferry was in great form and showed that he is far from finished. Overall, a fantastic concert that met the very high expectations!

The setlist:

I Put A Spell On You - Slave To Love - Don't Stop The Dance - Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues – Make You Feel My Love - Don't Think Twice It's All Right – If There Is Something - Casanova - Alphaville -  Reason Or Rhyme - Like A Hurricane – Tara – Carrickfergus - Chance Meeting - Bitter Sweet - More Than This - Avalon - My Only Love - All Along The Watchtower - Love Is The Drug - Editions Of You – Let's Stick Together -Jealous Guy - Hold On I'm Coming