Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera tells UCR that two surviving band members who will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, including original keyboardist Brian Eno, won't be at the ceremony on Friday.

Drummer Paul Thompson also won't participate in the inductions at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn later this week.

“I spoke to Eno, and he's thrilled to be inducted,” Manzanera says. “But he's committed to not flying for a year for environmental reasons, and he's halfway through. He said he feels bad about it. He's very environmentally aware of his carbon footprint, and he doesn't want to break this pledge, but he's very happy for us."

[UPDATE: Frontman Bryan Ferry has confirmed his participation in a news release that also outlines who else will perform. His representatives say Ferry, saxophonist Andy Mackay and Manzanera "will be accompanied by a selection of musicians who have played with Bryan and Roxy Music throughout the years, including Chris Spedding, Neil Jason and Fonzi Thornton."]

As for original drummer Thompson, "he's also very happy to be inducted. But unfortunately, he's got arthritis in his hands and neck and can only do very low-key drumming. So he's unable to attend. He's disappointed about that. But we got [keyboardist/violinist] Eddie Jobson, so there will be at least four Roxy people on.”

Jobson replaced Eno after 1973's For Your Pleasure and left in 1976, right before Roxy Music took a two-year hiatus. He's the only member of the band being inducted who did not play on its 1972 self-titled debut album. Thompson returned when the band re-formed in 1978 and stayed another two years; Graham Simpson, who played bass on Roxy Music and left shortly afterward, died in 2012.

After it was announced that Roxy Music would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Mackay said they were "feeling quite optimistic" about the possibility of the band members performing together at the ceremony. This will be their first performances since 2011, when the reunion that began a decade earlier to celebrate their 30th anniversary ended.

Manzanera says they haven't figured out what they're going to perform yet. “We're going to do a couple of days of rehearsals, which should be exciting," says Manzanera. "And then we'll then decide, depending on how much time we're allowed to have, what songs we can do. So we'll rehearse a whole bunch of songs and then decide when we know a little bit more how much time we got.”

 

 

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