I was happy that I was invited to see Bryan Ferry at the Greek last week. I was at his first Boston performance at the Music Hall in 1974. My roommate, Pamela Fix Manning, was A hip girl on the scene and we hooked up with radio station WBCN. Along with our friends we called ourselves Geisha. My job was to entertain rock stars–hang with the gaggle of girls surrounding him. Drink his champagne and ride beside him in his limo after the concert. I was into Eno, so I wasn’t a groupie. I wore designer gear and made him laugh. Having been raised all over the world, I was not boring. The other girls were very pretty, but had no idea about eating caviar or truffles or pâté; just the models’ diet of celery, cocaine, and Ex-lax. He was a perfect gentleman. We had a press conference in his hotel, then they squired us home at 4 am. He had his pick of girls, but he has class and chose go to bed before the next show.
Meanwhile, Brian sang so pretty at the Greek I could not even lift my camera. Every word was icing, and he was the cake. At 74 his voice has not aged a bit. Still suave and debonair. Perfect pitch as he ground through all our favorite hits–Avalon, Love is the drug, Dreamhouse, Slave to Love. Sixteen big hits gently rocking our collective soul.
There was one disturbance with a drunk Irish girl screaming at the Latino staff, “Don’t touch me! I’m Irish!” We almost shut her up ourselves, as we really did not come for her racist floor show. They carried her out before we did.
Chris Spedding nailed it on guitar. He was part of the early punk scene, mentoring the Sex Pistols and such. It was a gorgeous night and my friends and I were graced with good seats, great sound, and a whole lot of pleasant memories. Everyone was just a little bit glam and fantastic one more time.
