Roxy Music • Both Ends Burning • Live at Wembley 1975

Roxy Music • Both Ends Burning • Live at Wembley 1975

Audio:
Roxy Music • Both Ends Burning live at Wembley Empire Pool • London, UK • October 18th 1975. From the 1976 album Viva! Roxy Music, and live at Wembley soundboard.
Musicians:
Bryan Ferry – Vocals
Paul Thompson – Drums
Phil Manzanera – Guitars
Andy Mackay – Saxophone
Edie Jobson – Keyboards
John Gustafson – Bass
Jacquie Sullivan – Vocals
Doreen Chanter – Vocals
Video:
October 17th, 18th 1975 • Wembley Empire Pool • London, UK. From the official Both Ends Burning video. Unconfirmed 1975 show, from All You Need is Love episode 15, US TV 1977.
January 27th 1976 • Konserthuset • Stockholm, Sweden

Roxy’s Siren album was released on October 31st, 1975. The Siren tour commenced on October 2nd 1975 and ran through Europe, the US until late March 1976. Andy MacKay: “(In the States) we played mainly theatres which suited us. In the U.K. we were playing arenas, but the audience were great in both”. On many of the early dates of the tour, including all the UK dates, the audience had not heard the new material. Despite that, Roxy played most of the tracks from the new album, even starting the set with Sentimental Fool, from Siren.

In a review in the Melody Maker of the Liverpool show, 3rd October, Barbara Drillsma described new song, Both Ends Burning as ”a real classic rocker”. The version of Both Ends Burning from Viva! certainly lives up to that epithet. Andy MacKay: Toward the end of recording (of Siren) we were compromised as we had been on Stranded and other albums by Bryan not having finished lyrics so that tracks got overworked as instrumentals while we were working as it were in the dark. ‘Both Ends Burning’ is a case in point. It has always been better live...” There’s been some doubt which show the Viva! recording is from. But comparing the soundboard from the second night at Wembley, October 18th, to the version on Viva!, it’s obviously the same recording. Some alterations have been made to the Viva! version – it’s about 30 seconds shorter, having had some of the “Keep on Burning ‘till the end” lines omitted. And there’s been considerable overdubbing of Andy MacKay’s saxophone, which although it is almost inaudible on the soundboard, is clearly different playing. Richard Adams writes about Viva! and the Wembley show on his blog:
“Phil Manzanera… assembled the songs and added some judicious instrumental overdubs - bits of Andy's sax playing here and there when mics hadn't picked everything up, some of his own guitar playing, tidying up wayward notes. Not much was needed as Roxy live was a well honed machine”.

In the Sounds review of the Glasgow show, 18th October, John Inghan wrote: “Ferry looking like an AWOL GI”. On the Siren tour Ferry had introduced a new aesthetic. He wore a khaki military style uniform throughout, apparently inspired by Elvis Presley’s uniform in the movie, “GI Blues”. Looking at shots of Presley in the movie, it seems almost certain that is so. Even down to the detail of the military emblem on the left shoulder of Presley’s uniform - in the same place on Ferry’s uniform, there’s an emblem, ‘tho of course it says, “Roxy Music”. Also new on the Siren tour was the addition of uniformed backing singers – the John Ingham review again: “…singers Doreen Chanter and Maggie Sullivan showed real class with powder blue WRAF uniforms”. In Barbara Drillsma’s Melody Maker review of the Liverpool show, she also mentioned “The Sirens”: “Roxy were helped along by two attractive young ladies Lorraine and Doreen - dressed in tight-fitting airforce outfits”.

It’s been a while now, that I’ve been wanting to untypecast myself from the strictly 70’s-Bowie-videos mantle. I’ve loved the first phase of Roxy Music since I was a kid, and of course there is so much common ground between Roxy and Bowie, so it seemed like a good place to start. I’m no expert on Roxy however, so I asked my Bowie / Roxy buddy Carla for some input. Carla had some great suggestions for Roxy videos, and Both Ends Burning was one of them. I checked out the official Both Ends Burning video, and frankly, I thought it was a mess! The official video is of footage from one of the Wembley shows, almost randomly synced to an edit of the studio version. Having a big love for the Viva! album, and a long standing to wish to see videos of those performances, I saw a video crying out to be made! However, the material in the short official video was inadequate for my purposes, so I leaned into a couple of other sources, as stated. As always with these type of projects, there was a lot of difficulties, and I’ve had to accept a lot compromises. Anyway, here’s my first Roxy Music video, hopefully the first of many videos I’ll be uploading by favorite artists from the archives.

Hope ya dig it!
I don't own the rights, and I'm not making any money out of this etc.
Just a fan making videos for other fans.
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Видео Roxy Music • Both Ends Burning • Live at Wembley 1975 канала Nacho Video