Lou Reed Wolverhampton Civic Hall 1st July 2011

It didn't start well. As I walked through the entrance a friend who works at the Civic Hall told me, "He's not going on for another hour, he shuffled in earlier and overran the sound-check, also, the bar is shutting at 9" (5 mins!) Now I know he is pushing 70, and has legendary temper tantrums and mood swings, but it was not a good start if I was missing much needed imbibement. I had missed seeing the reformed Velvet Underground in 1994 at Glastonbury, so I was really looking forward to the gig, as the music press had said it would be the 'Greatest Hits' of Lou Reed.

The much delayed start prompted some deserved, if not poor, heckling. Some was aimed at me from the two couples behind who asked "Why have you got 4 pints?, it's bloody sloshing everywhere" I informed her of the imminent bar curfew & politely offered them one for a tenner (he did think about it for a few seconds, but declined looking deflated & thirsty) I plonked myself down splashing the lady & her daughter next to me.

A frail looking Mr Burns, I mean Reed walked on stage as the band chimed into ‘Who Loves The Sun’ A favourite of mine, off the 1970 Loaded album, sung by Doug Yule. To say the sound was a bit rough round the edges, is an understatement, Lou was immediately off key, out of time, and struggling with the lyrics. After a few songs it became clear that the band were using this gig as a warm up for the tour. They tried in vain to decipher Lou's arm waving to 'bring the groove down' but didn't really know he meant so carried on. The promise of greatest hits disappeared quickly with late 70's album tracks ‘Senselessly Cruel’ & ‘Temporary Thing’ given a dust off. Lou hasn't performed these songs in over 30 years and to be fair to the band they did start to come together after 4-5 songs. ‘Smalltown’ clearly had been rehearsed and was a tighter progression than the previous songs. It's dark, dynamic of loud/quiet Pixie's style arrangement worked really well. A cover of  ‘Mother’ (John Lennon) was leftfield, and it was surprisingly good in places, with Lou giving the lyrics a real pounding, but again, it was over-long  and you felt it should have finished 3-4 minutes sooner.

For me, the best part of the show was the Velvet Underground & Nico LP  ‘unplugged’ section. ‘Venus In Furs’ was a faithful, powerful rendition, with great musicianship from the band. ‘Sunday Morning’ & ‘Femme Fatale’ were stripped down and delicately delivered, but when the lady next to you with the damp Stella Artois stained trousers says "Ohhh you have got a lovely voice" as I harmonised the backing to 'Femme Fatale' it confirmed Lou Reed was not giving one of his seminal performances.

The encore of 'Sweet Jane' & 'Charleys Girl' again were not received greatly, and you could sense even the die hard fans were forcing the 'whoo's' and 'Looooou' as Sweet Jane plodded on. Reed hardly played his guitar all through the set which was very disappointing, but maybe it was down to age or just wanting to drop in and out of the songs where he felt it was needed, he clearly felt the waving of his arms up & down throughout was more important. The last song was ‘The Bells’ which according to Reed, had "Sold 30 copies" he went on to say "it was one of his favourite songs" Not mine Lou. 

Okay it started late and there were technical problems, the band was under rehearsed , it was only a warm up, but I paid £38 & I expected a more professional approach to the show from him. My friend went on Monday to the  London show, and said "He played much better than you told me, but you never mentioned the gut!" Writing this blog, I viewed the London shows on You-Tube, he was wrong, but he also likes Ozric Tentacles.

Set List

1 Intro
2 Who Loves The Sun
3 Senselessly Cruel
4 Temporary Thing
5 Ecstacy
6 Smalltown
7 Mother (John Lennon cover)
8 Venus In Furs
9 Sunday Morning
10 Femme Fatale
11 Think It Over
12 Fly Into The Sun
13 All Through The Night
14 Encore 1
15 Charley's Girl
16 Sweet Jane
17 The Bells