Lou Reed 1972-07-14 London audience recording BA copy

Kings Cross Cinema
London
1972-07-14

start: 02.50
finish: 04.07

01: tuning/intro 2.24
02: White Light/White Heat 3.54
03: I'm Waiting For The Man 5.36
04: Ride Into The Sun 4.18
05: New Age 4.46
06: Walk And Talk It 4.23
07: Sweet Jane 5.11
08: Going Down 3.04
09: I Cant Stand It 4.13
10: Berlin 5.30
11: Cool It Down/Wild Child 14.06
12: Rock And Roll 6.31
13: audience 1.08
14: Heroin 9.20

Lou Reed: guitar, vocals
Vinny Laporta: guitar
Eddie Reynolds: guitar
Bobby Resigno: bass
Scottie Clark: drums

lineage: Maxell Low Noise "C-90" cassette from the collection of Bill Allerton - Pioneer CT-S670D player - wav - flac

wav transfer October 2025 by lurid_uk

This Friday night show, promoted by King Sound at the King's Cross Cinema, Pentonville Road, London, was Lou Reed's first concert in the UK as a solo artist. He had previously made a short (3 song) guest appearance with David Bowie and the Spiders at the "Save The Whale" show on 8th July, but this was his first "real" concert. Contemporary press ads bill him as "Lou Reed ex Velvet Underground": the support bands were Brinsley Schwartz and Gnidrolog. The ad in Melody Maker also promises "films, happenings and crazy suprize (sic) attractions", with advance tickets available in the cinema for £1. The following night's headliner was Iggy Pop, also making his first UK appearance. Heady days indeed! (Lou was to reappear here "by popular demand" two weeks later on 28 July.)
It certainly sounds as if a very appreciative full house turned out to see Lou, who had always had a cult fanbase in the UK. The band sound a little raw, especially during the opening few songs, but tighten up a lot as the show progresses. Lou was wearing his new black velvet suit with rhinestone embroidery, black tee shirt and platform shoes. To finish it off he had black eye make-up complementing his black nail varnish. His new friend Mick Rock was there,and it was at either this show or the follow-up on 28 July that he took the iconic photo which would later appear on the front cover of "Transformer".
It would be several months before Lou would start recording "Transformer", so the set includes 6 songs from his first solo LP alongside 7 from the VU back catalogue. (Few in the audience would have known that most of the songs on his first LP had been solo rehashes of Velvets rejects.....)

Overall Lou gives a good performance, putting a lot of passion into his vocals, and his voice holds up well. "Ride Into the Sun" and "New Age" fare particularly well - especially since Lou originally delegated these vocals to Doug Yule when the Velvets played them. "Sweet Jane" gets a great audience reaction, and is here complete with the "heavenly wine and roses" section that was edited from the original studio version. The backing vocals are pretty ragged in places but this only adds to their charm. "Cool It Down" is given a nice workout with some smooth guitarwork, and a nice segue into "Wild Child". "Rock And Roll" is the first encore, and Lou almost blows it when he forgets the words. The audience still want more and "Heroin" is the final encore.

Geoff Brown gave this show a great review in Melody Maker 22 July: "...Lou is a legend and after this concert...his reputation is secure..."

Bill had written the concert start and finish times on the cassette inlay card so I'm sure that he attended the show. I've been told that he did not record any of the shows that he saw, but the sound quality of this recording implies to me that he obtained this copy from whoever did record it.

I did a little processing of this recording as follows:
1. the signal levels were slightly different on each channel so I combined them into a single channel file and then made a 2 channel (L + R) file out of that. (It was a mono recording to begin with so I don't think this really affected anything).
2. the signal levels seemed to drop off towards the end of the recording so I amplified that section to bring it up to about the same level as the rest of it.
3. I normalised the resulting file to -2dB.
4. I did not attempt to do any equalisation of the recording.

I have obviously retained the raw master of the transfer - if anyone else thinks that they can take that and improve it further then that will always be possible. I also transferred the tape reels themselves into a new case.

RIP Lou and Bill

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