Saturday, October 1, 2011

VU - 1993-06-02 - Edinburgh

Here
Posted by at

3 comments:

Dr. Forrester said...

The Velvet Underground
Venue: The Playhouse, Edinbourgh, Scotland
Date: 2 June 1993

A "Nothing Songs" release

Lineage: Silver CD -> .aif -> CD-R -> .aif -> xACT flac conversion (level 8)

DISC1
01 Real Good Time Together
02 Venus In Furs
03 Guess I'm Falling In Love
04 After Hours
05 All Tomorrow's Parties
06 Some Kinda Love
07 I'll Be Your Mirror
08 Beginning to See the Light
09 The Gift
10 I Heard Her Call My Name
11 Femme Fatale
12 Hey Mr. Rain
13 Sweet Jane
14 Velvet Nursery Rhyme
15 WL/WH

DISC2
01 I'm Sticking With You
02 Black Angel's Death Song
03 R&R
04 I Can't Stand It
05 IWFTM
06 Heroin
07 Coyote
--rehearsal/soundcheck--
08 Venus In Furs
09 Beginning to See the Light
10 I Heard Her Call My Name
11 Femme Fatale
12 Hey Mr. Rain
13 Sweet Jane

When it comes to bootleggers, there is nothing I hate more than them making money off of starving fans. What Nothing Songs has done is exactly that. Several of their "releases" were actually downloaded from THIS site! So, this is a big SCREW YOU to Nothing Songs.

As for this set, the sound is really excellent. There are some very slight flaws in the recording...an edit here and there (first couple of seconds of Sweet Jane are cut), but nothing that makes this less than a superb soundboard recording. However, there are some dropouts during the soundcheck.

Unfortunately, Lou's voice is WAY in front of everything else. I never liked the Reunion gigs. A seminal noise-art-punk influence had decayed into a pop band. Listen to Disc 1/Track 1 for a perfect example of what I mean. I can't fault any of 'em for cashing in on their legacy, but I still refused to pay to go see 'em live in 1993. Everything sounds so crisp and clean...as if meant to be played on the radio! Yikes!!

I will say that Cale sounds great as usual (especially his piano on ATP) and Sterl's guitar lines sound as perfect as I have heard on any VU recording from the 60's. Moe is simply...Moe! Lou's voice sounds great (compared to today), but his phony banter with the audience is nauseating. I remember reading how before the reunion gigs, Lou was frustrated with the sound he was getting from his guitar on "I'm Waiting for The Man." He just couldn't get it to sound as powerful as on the records. Moe had to remind him that he used to ONLY hit the strings on the downstroke during that song!

I love the rolling country guitar during "I'll Be Your Mirror," but goddamn, will Lou shut up at the end of "Rock & Roll?!?!" Shut the F@¢K up and play!! (crap, I just quoted Zappa in a Lou torrent) Cale's voice is pretty true to the originals.

Granted, a bunch of middle-aged people aren't going to sound as ferocious playing live as when they were 20 (aside from The Stooges...maybe), but this is a fantastic document of the Reunion Tour. I'm willing to say that it is better than the official release, which Lou personally oversaw. Go figger.

October 1, 2011 at 7:09 PM
Anonymous said...

It (the city in Scotland that is)is spelt Edinburgh.

October 3, 2011 at 7:36 AM
Dr. Forrester said...

To be honest, I wondered about that as well. But, I wasn't certain enough to make the change. Thanks for speaking up!

October 3, 2011 at 7:51 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)