Lou Reed London 06 June 1989 audience recording from master cassette

"...this song is in a movie.....doesn't mean it's a good movie, just means that it paid for the amp.......the jacket....the bass player..."

Palladium Theatre
London
06 June 1989

01 Romeo Had Juliette 4.14
02 Halloween Parade 4.42
03 Dirty Blvd 4.37
04 Endless Cycle 5.35
05 There Is No Time 5.33
06 Last Great American Whale 6.00
07 Beginning of a Great Adventure 7.42
08 Busload of Faith 6.00
09 Xmas in February 3.28
10 Strawman 6.08
11 Dime Store Mystery 6.39
12 I Love You Suzanne 3.25
13 One For My Baby 6.23
14 Doin' the Things That We Want To 4.23
15 Rock and Roll 6.10
16 Video Violence 4.44
17 The Original Wrapper 10.15
18 Sweet Jane 5.38
19 Band Intro 0.28
20 Walk on the Wild Side 4.34
21 Vicious 4.49
22 Satellite of Love 6.25

23 Street Hassle (cut) 6.34
(track 22 from an audience recording by DR, London, 07 June 1989)

Lou Reed: guitar, vocals
Mike Rathke: guitar
Rob Wasserman: bass
Robert Medici: drums

lineage: maxell XL11 90 (master) cassettes - (WavePad) - wav - flac (level 8) - you

original audience recording by lurid_uk
(recorded from the stalls Row L Seat 2 using a Toshiba cassette recorder and Toshiba stereo tieclip mic)
transferred to wav September 2008 by lurid_uk
upoaded to Dime September 2008 by lurid_uk

Released more than 2 years after the embarassing mediocrity of "Mistrial", "New York" was Lou's biggest success of the 1980s. It was his biggest seller since "Sally Can't Dance" and got almost unanimously good press reviews. To celebrate his new status as a "thinking person's rock star", he hit the road on a world tour.

By the time the show hit London I had already heard numerous recordings of concerts from the North American leg of the tour, so I knew pretty well what to expect. This was the first of Lou's tours to use the "play the new record then play a selection of oldies" formula, and I think it worked quite well. The "New York" LP had a lot of strong material on it, the selection of "oldies" touched all the bases for most fans, and Lou's vocals still have real passion even after months on the road. Another first - Lou takes the time to introduce most of the new songs with a few words, and politely thanks the audience afterwards. (And I don't remember seeing a teleprompter anywhere on stage!) The band have all the songs honed to perfection - I don't think there's a bum note or missed cue anywhere in the set.

This 3 day residency at The Palladium was Lou's first appearance at London's venerable old variety theatre. He had been tentatively booked to play here in April 1977, but that planned appearance was cancelled by the Palladium Management, who associated Lou with what they saw as the unsavoury "punk music" movement. (This was hardly surprising since he was being promoted as "the godfather of punk".......) The only variation in set list over the 3 evening performances was the addition of "Street Hassle" on 07 June.

In the first part of the show, the "New York" LP is replicated pretty much it it's entirety, with much passion and no levity. That changes straight after the short break. Lou always sounds as if he's having fun when he plays "Suzanne": I'm sure you could trace that 2 string guitar solo all the way back to "The Ostrich". "One For My Baby" is treated like the bar-room song it is, with bits of "Lonesome Road" and "Rock Me Baby" thrown in for good measure. "Rock And Roll" is just sublime, but "Video Violence" sounds a bit "forced" to me (never my favourite song). Lou announces "The Original Wrapper" and is greeted with almost total silence. The encores of "Jane", "Wild Side", "Vicious" and "Satellite" are all guaranteed crowd-pleasers, and the sell-out crowd are suitably appreciative. "Sweet Jane" is particularly good, with a nice, relaxed, throwaway vocal from Lou. I'm pretty sure that no-one left the theatre disappointed - I certainly didn't.

This was the first Lou Reed show I recorded: I used my new Toshiba minature cassette recorder and I was very pleased with the way it came out. The instruments are all very clear, the vocals are high in the mix, and the audience are very appreciative, but only really apparent between songs. I almost missed the start of "Suzanne" because I stayed too long in the bar at the interval - that's me you can hear saying "fuck" just after I switched the recorder back on and hurried back to my seat.

After the show I hung around the stage door with a few other diehards and Lou eventually appeared and jumped into a car. He sat there for a while and was happy to chat and sign photos, records etc for those of us who were still waiting. A nice ending to a great night.

Included with torrent files (DELETED in re-seed):

1. Press Kit for "New York"
2. Contemporary press cuttings

Distribute widely but do not sell!
Give copies to all your friends!

The best place to find accurate information about all aspects of Lou Reed's solo career is www.loureed.es/

-------------------------------------------------------------
Re-seed note:
All tracks had SBEs. Fixed by TLH. Re-encoded to flac (8).