Roxy Music performing "Ladytron" Live with Brian Eno

OK, having just said I wasn't going to make this post, I'm gonna go ahead and make it anyway.

I just happened to randomly find, searching in private mode for "1973 music", a pro-shot performance of Roxy Music playing "Ladytron" live in Montreux.  I had no idea this even existed, and from the view count it seems like neither does anybody else!  So I wanted to take a little time and talk about the three live videos of Ladytron from the Eno period I know of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCzhAeukF1A

This is the first and most famous one - Roxy Music's breakthrough TV appearance.  I've known and loved it for ages - it appears on the fantastic "First Kiss" bootleg of Eno-era BBC sessions.  Video of it has been circulating since at least the '90s.

I didn't, though, know the exact date (the broadcast date turns out to be June 20, 1972).  I knew it had to be early on, as Ferry hadn't cut his hair yet.  While I was looking up the exact date I ran across this article that gives more context:

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/roxy-music-ladytron-the-old-grey-whistle-test-1972/

Now, I had no idea whatsoever of Whispering Bob Harris's sneering put-down in his intro - because it doesn't exist any longer!  The Old Grey Whistle Test is one of those BBC programmes notorious for not being preserved in the archives.  The Roxy Music performance beats the odds by still existing, as do all the clips from the episode.  What doesn't survive, however, are any of the presenter intros!

It seems, then, that Roxy Music made their television debut on a TV show hosted by the chairman of the Fuck Roxy Music league.  Here's Harris's surviving intro to their second appearance a year later:

https://youtu.be/j2R8sZ4SlXI

Even though this intro obviously exists, it has been trimmed from most of the many rebroadcasts of the song.  Bob Harris is still shit-talking Roxy Music.  I don't judge him for that.  We all have our own hills to die on, all of our own topics that drive us, against our better judgement, repeatedly look like total berks in public.  I see no reason to have any animosity towards Bob Harris in a world containing Graham Linehan.

Anyway, it is true that Roxy Music on this appearance come across as, well... they're pretty extra on this.  Which is why I love it, of course.  It's fantastically, ludicrously over the top.  It's also, though a little rough around the edges.  Ferry misses his intro.  Their stagecraft is a bit tentative.  Ferry's hair is long and not particularly flatteringly styled.  In some shots you can see their band logo, which looks like glitter applied to a cardboard box.  The wardrobe is amazing, for sure, but they're carried by the wardrobe and the music.  Pretty much everything they're wearing is shiny, and it's that quality that holds them together visually.  I mean for God's sake not only are both Eno and Ferry wearing animal prints but they're not even _complementary_ animal prints.

It's that outro.  A long and crazy duet between Manzanera's guitar freakout and Eno's knob-twiddling.  Absolute heaven.  How could it get any better?

Well, it didn't, immediately.  Their next TV performance of Ladytron was on November 25, 1972, on a show called Full House.  This show is now solely remembered for having Roxy Music perform on it; everything else about it has been overwritten by the Olsen Twins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0--qm-yj3w

This performance of "Ladytron" is just not as impressive.  Mostly this is down to the staging.  The lighting is pretty poor on this performance; everything is dark.  It's no real reflection on the band - I've heard other performances of them from around this time and they were at a peak.  They were doing amazing 18-minute versions of "If There Is Something".  Not to say that they're perfect - Mackay's oboe solo is noticeably sloppy.  One can tell overall Ferry has improved.  The haircut is doing wonders for him, and he's got a better sense of how to play to the camera.  Most of it is shot in closeup with fades, with long shots being these De Palma pans.  Manzanera is more confident as a guitarist as well - his soloing here is more shredding, less reliant on Eno's knob-twiddling to evoke pure noise.  In some senses yes it's a step back.

So the one that has me posting this is a video from Roxy Music's last tour with Eno, from April 29, 1973 in Montreux.  It says it's from a "festival" but it doesn't exactly look like a rock festival - looks like your typical live performance for TV. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56eeYrYKSh0

There's a lot more rock and roll bravado at play here.  The mixing is great.  Unfortunately the broadcast doesn't include the intro, but Mackay absolutely kills his oboe solo, legs akimbo in a power stance (did he wear a codpiece?  His outfits do tend to draw a lot of attention to that area) while Thompson whacks holy hell out of the skins.  Ferry glistens with sequins and sweat.  At the end of the song Manzanera and Mackay are jamming with each other like they're in the fucking E Street Band or something, just incredible power and energy.  Eno is, as usual, in the back with his reel recordings and synths, wearing a suit with shoulders that make him look like Quasimoto.  To make up for the missing intro, the jam goes on longer than even the OGWT performance, with a long slow fade into Eno's noise outro.  I am just blown away by watching this, the idea that they could find a way to match their stunning Old Grey Whistle Test recording.

It was the way of the future for them.  Ferry would go on to write even better songs.  The band without Eno would grow more confident, exude even stronger rock energy.  They weren't the same without Eno - that tentative, over the top weirdness from '72 would vanish - but Eno is on record as saying that he thinks Roxy Music were better after he left, and I can't argue too hard with his assessment.