Bryan Ferry / Royal Albert Hall 2020

Happy to see this released. I guess my question is whether Bryan was in good voice for this show.

Signed is sold out now…but it’s fine by me i want to have in my hands the James signed one first…

I’m a fan of Bryan Ferry – but not the point where I would usually have picked this up. However, its signed and the money is going to a good cause so its worth the £35 to me.

I also have to agree with others on here, SDE alerting me to all these deals & boxsets is costing me a fortune (especially since I set it to my homepage). Everyday, I login and there is usually something tempting me to part with my money! You’ve created an amazing site that has become indispensable to me for finding out about new releases.

I agree with GTR… Unfortunately his voice has grown thin… and not only live but on record too (Avonmore itself).
But none of us can battle against that, sadly.

I would have loved to try to meet him for a few words three years ago in Milan after a gig… But the drive back was too long to allow a long wait and chase.

I really wish he would release the Roxy Music – “Remixes (Blue)” EP on vinyl… I would love to have the Disco Pusher Remix of To Turn You On on that format to listen to at home. Sublime song. Brilliant remix. Danceable and tight with great respect for the original.

Mr. Ferry was one of the supporting acts for Barbra Streisand at the BST festival in London’s Hyde Park last year and he gave a great performance which blew all the other acts (except Miss Streisand) out of the water.

Songs selection sounds great… and BF does have a beautiful signature.

I’ve got a signed SACD of ‘Avalon’ which is fantastic in 5.1

Off topic for which I apologise profusely but…

Paul, I’m just reading 10cc : The Worst Band in the World by Liam Newton and SDE gets a namecheck and there is a quote from you. It quotes your review of an Eric Stewart release apparently posted somewhere on SDE (haven’t tried to find it yet).

I presume you were aware of this?

On the subject of signatures – I managed to purchase the recent Supergrass – Live on other planets (fully signed on the front of the LP) with the proceeds going to #saveourvenues. Of course there was NO possibility of having it signed after the concert, but I do have the kudos of wearing the Promotional T Shirt in public.

I did purchase the signed Bryan Adams CD – Shine a light (for rhyming slang pleasure) :)

Also the recent Album re-release Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott – Manchester Calling (signed CD booklet 6CDVXS3241) has excellent signatures, which compare with the original Amazon edition (CDVS3241).

All I want are remastered 2xCD deluxe editions of his excellent 80’s output:

1.”Boys & Girls”, with all non-album tracks found on the original period 7inch and 12inch singles ‘Slave To Love’, ‘Don’t Stop The Dance’, ‘Windswept’, and ‘Is Your Love Strong Enough?’. This could also include an additional CD compiling all versions of ‘Don’t Stop The Dance’ dating from 2013, and originally released exclusively on three 12inch vinyl records and digitally.

2.”Bête Noire”, with all non-album tracks found on the original period 7inch and 12inch singles ‘Limbo’, ‘Kiss And Tell’, ‘The Right Stuff’, ‘Help Me’, and perhaps ‘Let’s Stick Together 88’.

Both of these reissues could also include an additional CD with an instrumental version of the album, as the few instrumental versions found on the period 7 & 12inches are real treats (‘Windswept’, ”Valentine’, ‘Bête Noire’, etc.).

Ha . Remember buying Ritchie blackmores . Blackmores night 1997 cd shadow of the moon . Jap Ltd ed with bonus track . Only to find inside booklet has signatures of both Ritchie and candice night . thanking their Japanese fans !! Still in mint condition! Nice one eh ?

I met him at a launch for Olympia. He signed my cd ‘Dear Mark, Dont Stop the Dance , Love Bryan’
Lovely guy.

Only autograph i have is Aretha Franklin’s. I won her signed album Who’s Zoomin’ Who from some radioshow competion in the 80’s. I’m not sure that the autograph is really signed by her. Maybe it was signed by the DJ who run the show!

The late, great Bert Jansch would always sign his name and draw a five-pointed star – a nod to his former band the Pentangle. I’m not a collector of autographs myself, but when I self-published ‘Echoes From Then’, a ltd edition ‘companion volume’ to my generally available book on John McLaughlin, ‘Bathed in Lightning’, a couple of years back, I offered a ‘signed copy’ via the Kickstarter campaign (to cover printing). I was amused when a fairly well-known guitar player subscribed to the campaign but politely asked me NOT to sign the book. :-D Unsigned copies of ‘Echoes…’ will be the real rarities!

I thought it would have more solo hits. Slave to Love, The Right Stuff, Kiss and Tell, and Don’t Stop The Dance. Love those first two solo aftervRoxy albums. Too expensive to send to Canada, I hope it pops on Amazon or at Stores.

Signature story
The actor who played Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christiansen) in Episodes 2 and 3 was at my wife’s high school kindly doing something for the kids. She asked if he could sign my son’s Star Wars Bluray collection. He signed it Jack I am not your father by request and laughed saying no one has ever asked for that before. She said he was a very nice guy. I am not an autograph seeker but I have a few by circumstances.

On the subject of signatures, after one of his concerts, I got Matt Berry to sign an LP to my mate as: “Well look who it is…Cliff bloody Chapman” (in reference to his character from the sitcom ‘Toast’) he gladly did it, and thought it was hilarious that someone would want that on a record cover. Think it made his night!

Its interesting that the vast majority of comments here are about the signature, rather than the music on the album or the reason its being released. Its almost like a lot of people are “collectors” rather than “music fans”…

I bought mine last night. Pretty good tracklisting & a fantastic cause. Though I’m sure that his band & crew would prefer the money now rather than next Spring. I agree with the comments about his voice, I thought it was sounding a bit thin too but his backing band carried him through. I’m not gonna criticise him though because I love his stuff so much. & Listening to his output over the years has given me so much pleasure.

I’ve already got a personalised autograph from the great man & a setlist from one of his band so I’m more than happy!

Now lets have some SDE’s from his back catalogue!!

When artists started offering signed CDs/LPs via their online stores a few years ago it was a great novelty and most autographs by and large were proper autographs as they tended to be very limited thus allowing them the time to sign them properly. We have now got to the stage where it is used primarily as a promotional tool to get the album as high into the charts as possible rather than the original idea of signing a small number for loyal fans who pre order early. This can be backed up now by the marketing ploy these days of signed versions suddenly now becoming available a few days after release to try and push for the number 1 spot on the first week of release to boost sales further.
Nowadays signed items can be in the thousands with the resultant drop in quality of the autograph. It’s the sheer volume that is the issue. If autographed copies are available across different formats and different bundles from a band’s online store and also available on Amazon we are talking a lot of autographed copies which will be 99.9% guaranteed to be squiggles.Nearly all releases by The Courteeners have been signed and when I look at the quality of the autographs from their early releases compared to the recent ones the difference in the quality of signatures is astonishing. Current ones are squiggles. The most annoying one recently was Richard Ashcroft’s last album. I pre ordered signed copies of the coloured vinyl LP and CD from his online store. The autograph on the LP was fantastic. Full signature and huge. The CD was initials only. To make it worse Amazon then released signed CDs and from what I saw he did a full signature on them. Buy from his store get initials, buy from Amazon get the full signatures. Didn’t seem right.

Ferry’s signature on my ‘Bitter Sweet’ CD is pretty good to be fair. I’ve seen far worse. Not as good as Dido’s which included a kiss.

Was anyone at the RAH concert? I love Ferry but his voice has started to sound pretty thin live. I bought a double live CD from his website a few years ago from the ‘Avonmore’ tour and he didn’t sound great. Not unexpected given he is now 75 (!).

Thinking about this more – I guess it at least means signed copies go straight to ‘proper’ fans – which is to say those signed up to newsletters and email updates – rather than artists being handed a bunch of stuff to sign randomly only for that stuff to go straight to ebay at a premium – someone has clearly thought – well if they are going to do that it may as well be *me* the artist who gets the premium – but what it loses of course is – as has been pointed out – that moment of eye contact between fan and artist – so the story of your vinyl is –

yeah bought it online

rather than –

we caught the train, queued for 2 hours, met some other fans, had a lovely quick chat with hero..

you know – that thing that makes it being a signed copy actual special.

I just realized that my second hand Paul Weller Stanley Road 3 disc deluxe CD is signed… a quick browsing of “Signed Paul Weller CD” online confirmed a high probability that the signature may be authentic indeed. Its been sitting in an Ikea CD box for at least 2 years… any takers… lol. Peace and Merry Christmas. Paul, your website relates directly to my decreased funds and increased “hoarding of physical products” symptoms and, more important, it kept me off the Covid infested streets. To better 2021, thanks for all that you do, mate! Ta!

Nothing from his masterpiece Boys & Girls?

Unfortunately, I have been informed by the Ferry website and by Townsend Music that they don’t ship to Canada.

2 april 2021. I don’t want another 2020, please! No more!

Odd unforced error from the Ferry team: “Hiroshima Mon Amour” should be “Hiroshima…”
Unless Bryan now does a version of the classic Ultravox! track!

I got a very lovely elaborate squiggly signature when I asked Bryan to sign a
promo twelve inch single way back in the 1980`s.

Is this release ultimately going to be mass-distributed (obviously without a signature) via Amazon and the like, or, will it be exclusive to the website? If anyone knows, could they please provide insight?

Starting to get a little bored about thess signed physical formats, i know i know nobody is forcing me to buy… however

I preordered a James signed released last October and still don’t know if i’m gonna receive it this year, of course they charged me IMMEDIATELY. Not only that they want me now to buy them right now their new next year album which doesn’t even have an album cover yet, again they will charge me right now.

And this week they are selling the same physical stuff but digital too and more cheap…. sigh, they said it was gonna be physical only…

Smell desperation of course.

Now Ferry…It could be a signed CD-R…maybe, maybe not. Same store as James stuff: TMStor.
I’m gonna wait for the James one first to arrive, want to know what i’m paying for.

A shame that the full 23/25 song set list couldn’t have been accommodated in a 2 CD edition.

Good Cause, ordered. Cheers for the heads up Paul. From what i’ve seen re: signatures, It will take something really atrocious to top Gary Barlow’s recent efforts!

I’ve had some hopeless autographed CDs. Corey Taylor, Cardinal Copia and Black Stone Cherry couldn’t get beyond initials. Even H from Steps managed better than that…and he’s H from Steps! But none worse than Bryan Adams who just scrawled a Toblerone. Still, for rarely more than the regular shop price I’m not grumbling.

You’re kidding about squiggle! I also have a previous signed edition …. But, am a sucker for anything by him.

Didn’t some fans suspect that Simple Minds had used some sort of signing machine on last year’s signed live album?

I own a bunch of signed vinyl and CDs. I actually don’t mind Ferry’s signature (I have the photo print from the Live ’74 box set framed and on my wall), though yes, quite a few of the signatures I have are quite lame. The worst one I have is Alex Patterson’s signature he signed on the Orb’s Abolition Of The Royal Familia album. To bad we can’t post pics here, but can be looked up.
I have his signature a few times now, so will have to think twice about this release.

I have bought one gladly but I know what the above blokes mean…I have a significant amount of items signed by folk over 45 years and can remember all of the details
and circumstances.

Well done ,Paul.

I agree re signed stuff. I had a signed vinyl sent to me a few months back with a squiggle bank centre of the otherwise very nice artwork – no option to get an unsigned vinyl at all – and to cap it all it came with a free postcard which they could just have easily have autographed without defacing the actual album! Ah well – I guess some people like it.

Iam starting to get a certain ennui
about all these signed limited editions.
As there is no emotional contact and no personal message
it remains a squiggle on the cover . Is it me or do you find that the only signatures that
have any value are the ones obtained in a face to face setting?

Ordered for the cause but his signature is atrocious going by previous buys, really is a squiggle !