The Velvet Underground

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

Wembley Arena, Sunday June 6th 1993

Personnel, from left to right:

John Cale, bass guitar, organ/piano, viola, violin, wearing pale mauve t-shirt, black trousers

Lou Reed, rhythm/lead guitar, wearing black t-shirt, blue denim jeans

Maureen Tucker, drums, organ, wearing black t-shirt, black trousers

Sterling Morrison, lead/rhythm guitar, bass guitar, wearing purple shirt, black trousers

Songs performed, in approximate sequence:

Song, Original album, Lead vocal

We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together, 1969 VU Live, Reed

Venus in Furs, VU & Nico, Reed

Some Kindsa Love, VU, Reed

All Tomorrow's Parties, VU & Nico, Cale

I'll Be Your Mirror, VU & Nico, Reed

The Gift, White Light, Cale

After Hours, VU, Tucker

Femme Fatale, VU & Nico, Cale

Sweet Jane, Loaded, Reed

White Light - White Heat, White Light, Reed

I'm Sticking with You, Tucker

Beginning to See the Light, VU, Reed

I Can't Stand It, Lou Reed, Reed

Rock and Roll, Loaded, Reed

Black Angel's Death Song, VU & Nico, Reed

I Heard Her Call My Name, White Light, Reed

plus about three or four not recognised, including a 'Train' song,

not 'Train Coming Round the Bend'.

1st encore

Waiting for My Man, VU & Nico, Cale

Heroin, VU & Nico, Reed

2nd encore

Coyote, Reed

Pale Blue Eyes, VU, Reed

The four 'legendary' members of the Velvet Underground appeared on stage without undue delay. This was the line-up which first performed together regularly, and which, in 1966, with the help of chanteuse Nico, played under Andy Warhol's aegis in New York, making the famous classic 'Banana' album, notorious for scaring parents with the lilting authentic chords of 'Heroin' (about the experiences of a drug-addict). At a time when such things seemed far easier, they refused to bow to any commercial demands, wrote and performed songs in a consistently original, uncompromising way, eschewing even the hippy ideals of most of their creative contemporaries, and achieved an esoteric following which has died perhaps hardest of all the famous sixties groups. Like Warhol, they needed no reference to their contemporaries' work. As Cale said, they tried to give songs with answers, not questions, but perhaps ultimately they discovered that true answers are as elusive as ever.

After the group's break-up, occurring gradually until about 1972, Reed and Cale pursued solo careers, Reed with more commercial and critical success while Cale's music remained enigmatic and avant-garde. Morrison studied literature and became a lecturer in Texas. Tucker raised several children in the Mid-West. In the intervening 21 years, Nico and Andy Warhol have died, the latter leaving behind a legal dispute over his estate. Now we were hoping that, time notwithstanding, an artistic force of the sixties was still hanging on to its essential creative power, to tell us that commercial dictates still did not rule absolutely over the desire to make good music and to share the pleasure it gives, that the rumours that money was a prime objective in the reformation were typical media hype.

Cale, Reed and Morrison stood in line across the front of the stage, each with guitar. In the traditional place at the back stood Maureen Tucker, drumsticks ready. Reed, in the centre and immediately taking command, began in his usual dry way: "Welcome to the annual Velvet Underground reunion....." Were they coming again next year? ".....We seem to get together every twenty-five years." He always had the knack of bringing you down to earth. And then into the first number, a fast, arresting rendition of a song never recorded in the studio, but the "real good time together" could only be interpreted optimistically. It was an accurate prophecy.

There followed 'Venus in Furs', the song Morrison said was, for him, the group's finest achievement. There was a hint of disappointment here, the studio version being almost unsurpassable. One noticed Reed's spectacles, small and quite unlike the shades he used to flaunt; Cale's short page-boy coiffure reminiscent of his style of 1968. Morrison's hair was flecked with grey, Cale and Tucker were no doubt bulkier than of old, but there was little in their appearance to suggest such a passage of time, and, as it happened, absolutely nothing in the music.

The classics began to flow after that. Nearly all were carefully rehearsed to sound very like they had sounded on the album versions. These were songs, not about idealised situations, nor about morality, nor fantasies, but about real people following their inmost impulses with no offerred criticism or praise. It may be sheer excitement ('White Light'), loneliness ('After Hours'), a heartless lover ('Femme Fatale'), frustration, love's bittersweetness, waiting, the joys of music ('Rock and Roll') and perhaps, in 'Beginning to See the Light', the group's most philosophical song, an ironical essay on living without preconceptions. There is never a sense of having to live up to someone else's ideals; instead, we see life de facto, and are asked no more than to make of it, and do with it, what we will.

Cale took over the lead vocals on some of Nico's songs, notably 'All Tomorrow's Parties' (Warhol's favourite), a song which conveyed the fullness of the Velvets' sound particularly well. 'Some Kindsa Love' had such a firm, resolute beat, offset by Reed's cheeky vocals, that the audience was soon won over. Each song ended with newly tuned guitars for Reed and Morrison brought promptly on stage - there was no time to become bored. Cale alternated between bass and keyboards. Maureen Tucker showed that good drumming does not depend on strength, speed or versatility, but, as with all instruments, on absolute timing. She came forward a little shyly for her famous song, 'After Hours'. During the many long instrumental closures of the songs, she was constantly alert for Reed's or Cale's signal that this was the last repetition. Cale's occasional shift to violin or viola always seemed exciting. Personally I found 'The Gift' the most rewarding of the earlier songs. Once again the complex, rhythmic pulse was immediately there, steadily and accurately sustained for ten hypnotic minutes while Cale sang or told the strange story in his tongue-in-cheek style and deadpan Welsh accent.

It was about at this point that I noticed what seemed to be something a little unconventional about the group's use of the typical instrumental formation: Morrison, while playing lead guitar on this and many other songs, does not improvise, but, like Tucker, plays a steady firm beat, even if in the form of a gentle melody, whilst it is Reed and Cale, on rhythm guitar and keyboards, who improvise, whose bizarre diversions from what might be expected become more comprehensible amidst the cadences of Morrison and Tucker.

Between songs, Reed asks for requests. It seemed there was no way he could hear anything but a general shouting, let alone my neighbour, only a few rows back, vainly begging for 'What Goes On'. He points to the left, straining to hear. A desperate shout. At last, that's the one... the chords of 'Sweet Jane' ring out with delicious aplomb. Of course he was only playacting - the guitars were perfectly tuned. Later on my neighbour was gratified, his call for 'Rock and Roll' being immediately satisfied.

Noticeably, none of Reed's or Cale's solo music is played. Perhaps they are right to keep separate and undiluted the inimitable sound that they generated so well together. It was good to see two such talented and inventive musicians together at all, harmonising or playing off the other's lead, when so many concerts are centred around the work of one.

The group ends with some of their more discordant, avant-garde songs, 'Black Angel's Death Song' especially good with Cale's viola grinding away. The group then takes its bow, literally in line and bowing respectfully to their audience. One sensed they had enjoyed it, the reunion which Reed once claimed he had absolutely no interest in. The encore calls testify for the audience's feelings. Plenty of classics left, out comes 'Heroin', Tucker's crescendos echoing the slow throb of the addict's oblivion. It might have been good to end on, but the audience is again persistent, and we hear the first new Velvet Underground song of the evening, a Lou Reed composition about a coyote. Finally, the sad, sleepy melody of 'Pale Blue Eyes' is indeed a fitting finale.

First published in Sol 28.