Bryan Ferry and Judith Owen Live at Bridlington

Judith Owen

Tonight we headed off to Bridlington Spa to see Bryan Ferry and his support artist. Who turned out to be Judith Owen.  I'd not heard of her before. Great voice, great piano playing and an amazing band. of musicians providing support.

An Amazing Backing band

If you are as old as me (and good luck with that) you'll remember such people as Waddy Wachtel ,Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel. Pick a hit album from the seventies, eighties, nineties, noughties or now and it's odds-on that at least one of them played on it. To pick just one random example, Waddy Wachtel played on "Lonely Boy" by Andrew Gold, one of the best records ever. Ever.

Just as they finished their set I looked up Judith Owen on Xbox Music and found out another interesting fact. She is married to Harry Shearer, the voice of Mr. Burns in the Simpsons. During the interval I wandered off to find them selling and autographing CDs. I got the whole band and did the whole star struck bit, shaking hands twice and whatnot.

Then I noticed a chap who was helping to take pictures of folks posing with the band. Who looked a lot like Mr. Shearer. And was. I asked him to sign the CD too, although he protested that he had nothing to do with the music. I reassured him that I've been taking credit for things I haven't done for years, and that persuaded him to put pen to paper. I then shook hands with "Mr Burns", complemented him on his wife's singing and her choice in backing musicians, and headed back to my seat. I thought the evening had already peaked.....

But I was wrong. Bryan Ferry came on and did an absolutely storming set. Backed by a fantastic team of musicians he ripped through a choice selection of his back catalogue, including a few Roxy Music numbers and tracks from his new album before bringing the crowd to its feet for the last few songs. Including a blazing version of "Do the Strand".

General consensus at the end of the evening was that "Bryan has still got it going on.".  HIs tour is continuing round the country. If you get the chance to go, just go. Thank me later.