Cirque Royale

This is an example of a sale bootleg from Bry's As Time Goes By tour. Unfortunately, novice hands working the scanner and software that captured this (borrowed) disc left a slight moire pattern on the image, along with a slightly misaligned back cover.

From Roxy Art

From Roxy Art

It's my feeling that there was at least more professional sale bootleg from this tour than the archives will show, but this might have been the only "pressed silver disc." This one is from a company called Switch On! Devil Kwsk, and it is their only Ferry title*. Google suggests that the label also released one Blur bootleg and sixty gajillion David Bowie bootlegs. See earlier entries for mentions of CD-R bootlegs changing the playing field. Here's a case of a bootleg company getting huffy about being undercut by everybody else: click on that back cover and have a look at the disclaimer in the upper left-hand corner.

At any rate, this Brussels show was transmitted by a Belgian FM station, one of at least three radio broadcasts from this tour. Unfortunately, it was at the Toronto show that Bry sang a tune called "I Can't Get Started," and not either of the better known, and distributed by 'leggers, FM shows. This was another '30s cover, possibly rehearsed or recorded for the As Time Goes By sessions. In the absence of a legitimate live album from the tour, Cirque Royale is a terrific alternate. Every home should own one. Or a copy of one.


*Not true, apparently. Switch On! Devil Kwsk allegedly also bootlegged Roxy Music's 2001 Glasgow show as it appeared on BBC Radio, under the title "First Edition." I have not seen this CD.