Culture 3 min read By Trevor Kendall
Brian Eno skipped Roxy Music’s 2022 reunion tour over his flying
Phil Manzanera says Brian Eno turned down Roxy Music’s 2022 reunion tour because he had stopped flying for environmental reasons. Elsewhere, Duran Duran drummer Roger Taylor is retiring from playing because of worsening tinnitus.
Brian Eno declined to take part in Roxy Music’s 2022 reunion tour, according to guitarist Phil Manzanera, because he had stopped flying for environmental reasons. Manzanera’s account, which appears in a teaser for a longer feature, is the only detail currently available about Eno’s decision, and it points to a personal stance that kept one of the group’s most celebrated early members off the road.
Eno co-founded Roxy Music, the English art-rock band formed in 1971, and helped shape its experimental sound before leaving in 1973 to pursue a solo career. His absence from the reunion dates he made with his former bandmates was notable given how central he has been to the band’s legacy. The reasoning Manzanera describes, a refusal to fly, reflects a commitment that the musician has held long enough to affect his working life.
The Roxy Music detail arrives alongside a separate announcement from the British pop group Duran Duran. On Thursday, 12 November 2026, the band said in a statement that drummer Roger Taylor is stepping down and retiring from playing drums. Taylor cited worsening tinnitus, which he was recently diagnosed with, and the band said he had made the decision after medical advice warned of a risk of hearing loss.
Taylor, who is 66, first played with Duran Duran from 1979 to 1985 before rejoining the group in 2001. The band said it will continue with its remaining members, Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and John Taylor. Duran Duran’s most recent album is Danse Macabre, and in 2026 it released the single “Free To Love” with Nile Rodgers. The group had only recently finished a UK and European arena tour, on which Nick Valensi joined the band for a show in Paris.
Separately, the music press marked the death of Danny Kelly, the former NME editor and football broadcaster, who died aged 69. Kelly had been receiving treatment for oesophageal cancer before his death. He edited NME from the late 1980s until 1992 and later became editor of Q magazine, which was named British magazine editor of the year under his leadership. He also launched the football website Football365 in the late 1990s and co-created The Game podcast for The Times.
Kelly spent about 20 years as a presenter at TalkSport and, more recently, hosted the Tottenham Hotspur podcast The View From The Lane for the past 15 years. Tributes have come from broadcaster Danny Baker, journalist Conor McNicholas, the Manic Street Preachers, Chuck D, Tottenham and TalkSport.
Source: consequence.net
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