Roxy Music: Heart Still Beating (Live) - 1982

This was recorded live in Fréjus in the south of France in 1982 and captures Roxy Music in their coolly efficient polished, latter era incarnation. Along with Viva! it is the only official live material available from the period before Roxy went their separate ways (yes, I know there is a 2001 reunion live album too).

The sound and the performance on here is as perfectly professional as you would imagine, but something is slightly. missing by not having Paul Thompson on drums, but the much-travelled Andy Newmark. Only Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera remain from all previous Roxy alumni.

It is, to an extent, a more satisfying live album than Viva! due to the simple fact that you more music - fourteen tracks (thirteen if you don’t count the short intro of India) as opposed to eight. Only A Song For Europe, a lively, slightly faster Out Of The Blue, the disco-flavoured favourites Both Ends Burning and Love Is The Drug plus a frantic encore in Editions Of You are included from Roxy Phase One. There are a few other interesting additions, nevertheless - the solid Manzanera guitar instrumental of Impossible Guitar, a storming, rocking cover of Neil Young’s Like A Hurricane and the upbeat Can’t Let Go, from Ferry’s solo 1978 album The Bride Stripped Bare.

Highlights for me are Mackay’s sensational saxophone on A Song For Europe, a beautifully bassy Love Is The Drug and the cool élan of While My Heart Is Still Beating, My Only Love and, of course, the sublimely sumptuous syncopations of Avalon.

The high standards set here were continued on the many Bryan Ferry tours over the years. I have been lucky enough to catch him live five times and the ambience at the gig has always been like it is on this album. I only saw Roxy the once, by the way, in 2011.

Incidentally, there are a few other ‘official bootlegs’ of live material available on streaming services or to buy - 1979’s excellent Showing Out (CD), the same year’s equally impressive Live In Denver (streaming) and 1982’s Avalon Radio Broadcast (streaming). The sound is not as good on these as it is on the official albums, but they are listenable.

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