LOU REED 1984-12-16 London audience recording

Academy Theatre
Brixton
London
England
16 December 1984

disc 1
D101: Sweet Jane 3.52
D102: Waiting For The Man 4.07
D103: Martial Law 4.49
D104: Down At The Arcade 4.56
D105: Legendary Hearts 3.32
D106: Turn Out The Light 6.12
D107: There She Goes Again 3.27
D108: Sally Cant Dance 5.52
D109: Walk On The Wild Side 4.36
D110: Street Hassle 5.44
D111: Satellite Of Love 7.47

disc 2
D201: My Red Joystick 5.46
D202: New Sensations 8.01
D203: Doing The Things We Want To 4.28
D204: Turn To Me 5.14
D205: I Love You Suzanne 3.09
D206: White Light White Heat (cut at start) 4.13
D207: Coney Island Baby 6.50
D208: Waves Of Fear 3.26
D209: Band Intro 1.07
D210: Rock And Roll 6.38
D211: Interview* 11.38
D212: Interview/Doing The Things We Want To** 5.42

* interview by Andy Peebles, Saturday Live Show, BBC Radio 1, 15th December 1984
** interview by Andy Kershow, Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC TV, 18th December 1984

Lou Reed: guitar, vocals
Robert Quine: guitar
Peter Wood: keyboards, backing vocals
Fernando Saunders: fretless bass, backing vocals
Lenny Ferrari: drums

lineage: (unknown generation) TDK AD60 cassettes - Pioneer CT-S670D player - wav - flac (level 8) - you

original recording engineer unknown
transfer to wav May 2014 by lurid_uk
uploaded to Dime May 2014 by lurid_uk

DKB Concertpromotion presents the 1984 European Tour

01 December: Johanneshov Isstadion, Stockholm, Sweden
02 December: Falkoner Teatret, Copenhagen, Denmark
04 December: Sportspalais Ahoy, Rotterdam, Holland
05 December: Philipshalle, Dusseldorf, Germany
07 December: Palais de Beaulieu, Lausanne, Switzerland
09 December: Velodrome Anoeta, San Sebastian, Spain
10 December: Palacio Municipal de Deportes, Barcelona, Spain
12 December: Palasport, Padova, Italy
13 December: Palasport, Milan, Italy
15 December: "Saturday Live" show, BBC Radio 1, London
16 December: The Academy, London, England
17 December: The Academy, London, England
18 December: "Old Grey Whistle Test" show BBC TV, London

This was one of the last dates of the (2nd) European leg of the world tour to promote "New Sensations". The band had been on the road on and off since the summer and things were getting a bit strained between Lou and Bob Quine. Bob reputedly referred to this as the "No Sensations" tour - no drink, no drugs, no parties, no fun. These problems would come to a head in early 1985: they fell out badly and would never play together again. A real pity, with Lou the long-term loser in my opinion.

This was the first Lou Reed concert I ever saw. I'd been a fan since the early 1970s, but somehow never manged to see him live. I just missed the Los Angeles show in early November but manged to get a ticket for the first of his 2 London shows - his first appearances in London since 1979. (Even after all that my friend Alan and I stayed in the bar too long and we missed the first 2 songs!)

The show itself didn't let me down - downstairs at the Academy was "all standing" and the atmosphere was great. It looked like a sell-out to me - I pushed my away to the front and had a pretty good view. Lou was in a good mood, pleased to be in London and introducing most of the songs with a few words. He at least seemed to be enjoying himself, even if his vocal performances were more workmanlike than passionate or inspired. After the show I found the stage door and hung around with few other hopefuls. We waited for more than an hour before Lou swept out, jumped into a limo and was driven away.

I got this recording of the show at a record fair in Edinburgh sometime in early 1985. Sound quality is a bit boomy/overmodulated in places - it gets better as it goes along. The entire European leg of this tour was preserved on audience tapes of varying quality and this is a typical example.

Lou did a lot of promotional work to support "New Sensations" - the mid-1980s were his most "user-friendly" years since the very early 1970s. RCA also pushed hard for the LP to be a commercial success: 7" singles with picture sleeves, 12" singles, a promo video interview, special remixes - the whole gamut of mid-80s promotional pressure was brought to bear on potential Lou Reed record buyers. And it succeeded, to an extent - the LP entered the top 100 in the USA LP charts and the promo videos for both "I Love You Suzanne" and "My Red Joystick" were in heavy rotation on MTV (alongside, if I recall correctly, Michael Jackson's "Thriller"). But it was all to prove futile - Lou perversely followed up this faux-success with the truly dreadful "Mistrial" ("...it's the best album I've ever made....").

I've included scans of part of the Cew Tour Handbook, the ticket and a contemporary review of the show.

RIP Lou
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