 |
Live at The Pigalle Club, Picadilly Circus, London 18/11/08
The former Roxy Music saxophonist revisits the past and previews the new with
his Avant Garde supergroup at the upmarket gentleman
’s haunt.
Since the genre-splitting group disbanded in ’82, Mackay has led a life mainly out of the spotlight,
surfacing briefly with The Explorers before returning at the Roxy reunion. Now
with a grand comeback planned, Mackay let us into his dark little secret- the
instrumental expressionist side project known as The Metaphors. The stellar
line-up consists of classical maestro Julia Thornton on concert harp, best
buddies TJ Allen on synthesizer and Hazel Mills on piano and occasional vocals,
Roxy drummer Paul Thompson and Mackay himself alternating between sax and oboe.
It
’s not quite Bryan Ferry’s baby but the crowd certainly didn’t care as they swung straight into ‘Love is the Drug’.
 |
On first impressions, it was kind of like ‘Guess the Intros’ from Never Mind the Buzzcocks as the harp and piano combined to try and imitate
Ferry
’s iconic vocals, before the familiar saxophone solo saved the day. And it
certainly is a brave move to imitate the man who repackaged John Lennon and
succeeded but the distinguished audience were cheering and whooping as one
might at a Roxy Music revival gig.
Mackay and The Metaphors work very much on the basis of atmospheric sounds,
experimental fusing and the engaging result that it brings, and in parts of the
set this worked very well. Taking full advantage of the clubs lighting
capacity, the band glimmered in and out of darkening ambience and striking
light shows. One could imagine they would go down well at a stadium gig or
festival with the trance-inducing solos and occasionally macabre elements.
With first album ‘London! New York! Paris! Rome!’ due out in February next year, the band
played tracks presumably to feature on it called ‘Elle’, ‘Waterloo Sunset’ (which Mackay introduced as being about the most beautiful city in the world-
London!) and
‘New York, New York’ and the tracks went down very well. It may well be Mackay’s band in name but, just as with Roxy, he is happy to stand back from the
spotlight, particularly to the talented Mills whose haunting vocals are the
focal point of many of the songs this over-capacity crowd were treated to.
 |
Perhaps to distance Mackay from past glories, his oboe is the main weapon of
choice and this was particularly prominent on title track,
‘London! New York! Paris! Rome!’. It was a polished performance and the five-piece seemed as if they had been
playing together for years as they effortlessly switched into the rhythmic
pieces- combining forms of classical music, traditionally-influenced, jazz and
electronic styles. In what was a relatively short hour-long set, Mackay spoiled
the
audience with a short solo performance before returning for a melodic encore
which had them on their feet in a gauging and enjoyable performance.
8/10 CM
(c) ChrisOnline.biz 2008
