Lou Reed

May 19, 2000

Royal Albert Hall

London, England

Until last night there were only two artists who I had never seen play left on my list that I had to see perform someday before I die (or they do). One of them was Lou Reed and I caught his show last night at the Royal Albert Hall which made it even more exciting.

I left the summer tour I was directing in Cambridge with the Tour Manager in charge of getting them to London the next day. Had a pleasant train ride through the green fields and woods between Cambridge and London. The landscape reminded me that England will always be the land of King Arthur and Robin Hood to me.

Got into London and headed for my hotel in Bayswater. After cleaning up and grabbing a chicken schwarma at Taza, I set out on foot across Kensington Gardens for the Royal Albert Hall.

I got there in about a half hour and the bulding was very impressive from the outside. I collected my ticket from the box office and went exploring the exterior of the hall to kill time until the doors opened.

Around the back I ran into two guys who were waiting near the stage door for Lou to arrive so they could get him to autograph some records. They said that if things went like the night before that Lou should be arriving in about 20 minutes, so I decided to stick around to see if I could catch a glimpse of him too.

While we waited these two guys talked about all the autographs they had collected. One guy talked about how he had never got Dylan's autograph although he had spent years trying. The same guy had tons of Lou autographs already including some he he got at the show the night before. He was going to attempt to get him to sign a boxset that Lou had already signed several years before, but the ink was fading so he wanted a new signature. These guys could have come out of the movie, High Fidelity. They told me about a guy they knew who would only get people to sign a record if he had a chance of getting the whole band to sign it. Therefore, if one of the members was dead he wouldn't bother with the others. For instance, he wouldn't get Paul McCartney to sign a Beatles record since John Lennon is dead and there is no chance of getting him to sign the record too. Wow.

Anyway, soon a grey minivan pulled up, the door slid open and there was Lou Reed about 3 feet away from me. He was with Laurie Anderson and several other people. One of the High Fidelity guys asked Lou to sign some records and he graciously signed 6 or 7 records and CDs. Then he asked Laurie Anderson to sign several records and Lou and I sat there watching for a few seconds. Soon Lou ended the autograph session with a stern, "Laurie..." and they both went inside.It was pretty cool to see them that close. Lou looked good. Besides the leather pants he looked completly normal.

After my close encounter with Lou, I said goodbye to my High Fidelity friends and went inside to find my seat. I was up in the upper balcony which isn't particulary close to the stage, but the view was good. The inside of Royal Albert Hall is equally as nice as the outside and I sat down to wait for the show and admire the hall.

Lou and his band came on about 20 minutes late and started into a roocking version of "Paranoia in the Key of E" from his new album. The sound was pretty good minus the bass which remained kind of muddy the whole night. Lou has been touring and recording with this band (Mike Rathke on guitar, Tony "Thunder" Smith on drums, and Fernando Saunders on bass) for his last two albums so they are very tight and obviously enjoy playing with each other. Mike Rathke did a pretty good imitation of Kieth Richards with his riffing the whole night. Fernando Saunders played a very muscular bass on both standup and electric. Tony "Thunder" Smith played a huge drum set that included a second bass drum mounted next to him so he could hit it with his sticks.

Most of the set was from Lou's last two albums, Set the Twilight Reeling and Ecstasy with a few excursions in to his other solo records. One notable song was "Growing Up in a Small Town" from Songs for Drella, a biographical album about Andy Warhol. Lou and the band had reworked the song into a kind of a drone and the crowd and the band seemed to enjoy it.

The band played mostly driving Rock and Roll songs with a few slower tunes like "Set the Twilight Reeling" thrown in too. Lou was animated on stage, but rarely spoke to the crowd. He was almost always grinning at the band memebers during instrumental breaks though. I really enjoyed Lou's guitar playing. He plays a mean rhythm guitar and he always plays cool solos that sound just exactly like Lou Reed. Highlights of the main set also included "Ecstasy", "Modern Dance" and a reworked "Riptide".

The band came out for the encore and Lou bgan playing the riff from "Sweet Jane" and as the band fell in behind him I realized that seeing Lou Reed play "Sweet Jane" would be one of the highlights of my musical life. They played a loud fast version and the crowd all stood up and danced. "Sweet Jane" is one of the truly great Rock and Roll songs. Lou gets a lot of press for being dark and its true that a lot of his songs are about sex and/or violence, but "Sweet Jane" is ultimatley a song about innocence. There ARE some evil motherfuckers out there that will tell you life is made of dirt and that children are the only ones who blush. Lou is not saying you should be naive, but to always keep a diamond in your mind so to speak.

Next up was "Vicious", a great song from Transformer. For the second encore they played the tandem of "Dirty Blvd." and "Perfect Day", two more classic Lou songs. The whole band came out to the front of the stage after "Perfect Day" and took a group bow. This was the last show of their European tour and the band was obviously appreciative of the crowds standing ovation. I was impressed too and walked back to Bayswater very happy and ready to meet up with the group again the next morning at King's Cross.

Now there is only one more artist on my list that I need see and that is Tom Waits. Luckily, I have tickets to see him on the 29th in Paris, so if all goes well I will review that show soon.