Lou Reed 1977-04-27 London soundboard (?) recording

warning: sound quality is pretty muddy, and inconsistent: listen to the samples!

New Victoria Theatre
London
27th April 1977

01: Sweet Jane 3.40
02: I'm Waiting For The Man 5.41
03: Rock And Roll Heart 2.57
04: Heroin 11.00
05: Rock And Roll 5.24
06: Walk On The Wild Side 4.33
07: Lisa Says 6.26
08: Leave Me Alone
09: Coney Island Baby 8.01
10: Vicious 3.06
11: Berlin 5.47
12: Banging On My Drum 3.33
13: Kicks 5.46

Lou Reed: guitar, vocals
Jeffrey Roth: guitar
Michael Fonfara: keyboards
Bruce Yaw: bass
Marty Fogel: saxophone
Michael Suchorsky: drums
Joanne Kamorin (?): backing vocals

lineage: unknown generation cassette - CDr - EAC(secure) - WAV - FLAC (level 8) - you
EAC log file included

recording engineer unknown
transfer to CDR courtesy EM
uploaded to Dime July 2009 by lurid_uk

Lou's world tour to support "Rock And Roll Heart" started in the USA in late 1976. By the time he hit Europe in March 1977, he'd dumped the 60 TV set backdrop and the jazzy arrangements and was back to playing dirty good-time rock and roll. Don Cherry was out and Lou was playing lead guitar again.

The original plan to was to play at the Palladium in London, but the mangement of that venerable old theatre decided that Lou Reed wasn't the type of artist they wanted - hardly surprising since Arista were promoting him as the "godfather of punk". This was 1977, and "respectable" Britian was being outraged by the "punk" antics of the Sex Pistols and the like - the last thing the Palladium wanted was the "Godfather of Punk" whipping the audience up into a venue-destroying frenzy. There was no need to worry about that - Lou hardly spoke to the audience at all during this show (the 2nd of his 3 night stay). He was a little more voluble the following evening (even if only to insult the audience).

Rachel was very apparent throughout this tour - she joined Lou on stage on "Queen's Day" in Groningen, Holland, and there was a party in London to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of their relationship.

This sounds like a soundboard recording, but it's not very good, and it's full of level shifts and balance changes.

some interesting scans included

1. Arista US and Arista UK Press Kits for "Rock And Roll Heart"
2. a pile of 1977 live shots - including Lou on stage with Rachel at Groningen and on stage with Nico in Berlin
3. some 1977 ticket stubs
4. a pile of 1977 press cuttings
5. "A Walk On The Mild Side", Zig Zag, April 1977
6. "The Prince Of Darkness", Mandate, June 1977
7. "A Talk On The Wild Side" by Victor Bockris, National Screw, July 1977 (with some great colour shots of Lou and Rachel by Mick Rock)

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