Lou Reed's Berlin
Lou Reed is still cool after all these years, which is an achievement in itself. If he ever slid up the temperature scale of the zeitgeist even for a moment, nobody noticed. Or if they did: nobody cares to remember. And now, in the middle of Sydney's summer festival of excessive heat and hype, here he is, sinewy and cadaverous as Keith Richard and almost benign in his 65th year, with the coolth quotient totally intact.
Released in 1973, Berlin followed the commercial success of Transformer and is as bleak, dark and degenerate as the city it celebrates. Unlike so many of the overblown rock concept projects of the 60s and 70s, however, Berlin was relatively minimal, brilliant and a critical and retail disaster. Nevertheless, it quickly gained status as a cult favourite, while fellow substance-abusers and professional rock rebels adored it. Its influence on Marianne Faithfull's 1979 comeback, Broken English, for instance, is obvious (and wondrous).
Reed has been nothing if not enigmatic and impossible to tag over the twists and turns of his brilliantly erratic career. Taking the concept of a concept album and placing it live on stage is hardly a leap for his febrile imagination. And Berlin lends itself to a theatrical setting even if the performance is standard rock format. But there are standards and standards: this show comes with a Julian Schnabel designed-set (sort of Age of Enlightenment wallpaper with intermittent video projections) and a band whose members range from long-time associate, guitarist Steve Hunter, across two bass players: electric bowed stand-up bass, six string-bass and rock style; to a well-disciplined and enthusiastic string and brass section and 12 members of the Australian Youth Choir. And then there are the back-up vocals: Sharon Jones and Antony of Antony and the Johnsons.
Berlin the stage show was first performed late last year at Brooklyn's St Anne's Warehouse, at the urging of the arts centre's director, Susan Feldman. It was as well-received over its four performances as it was derided upon its original release.
Sydney was no different: tickets sold out in minutes; scalpers were asking $450 a head and the pre-show excitement was palpable. Perhaps it was the proximity of genuine decadence and ennui in a city where both tend to be ersatz. Either way, the audience adored the hour-and-a bit of decay, misanthropy, domestic violence, self- and substance abuse, suicide and misogyny that characterises the surviving playlist of Berlin.
[page]Perhaps it's also about a world that's no longer warbling on about going to San Francisco with flowers in your hair, but is a world for whom a song such as 19 now references not one but two nasty, dirty, illegal wars. Whatever the murmurs maybe in the current wave of the zeitgeist, Lou Reed is tapping into them with this 30+-year-old song cycle with a freshness and zeal that's palpable.
And as a measure of where he stands in musical esteem, as well as how he chooses to work, it's worth noting that Sharon Jones is touring in her own right in August and is one of the gospel-based soul sisters who send shivers up and down the spine whenever she opens her mouth.
Antony, of course, is Antony and you either get him or you don't. He is possibly one of the most affecting and memorable backing singers who's ever been invited by the boss to do a solo encore: Candy Says. And that's after following Jones who also got her own rip-roaring tribute moment. On the Antony and the Johnsons website, he writes of that song ...
"I received a call from Hal Willner at the beginning of the summer. Unbelievably he had picked up our I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy CD from Other Music and had included it in a pile of possibilities for guest singers on Lou Reed's new album. Hal called me up and said Lou liked the CD and would I do some back-up vocals. I couldn't believe my good fortune ... to work with Lou Reed and Hal Willner! Berlin and Transformer, not to mention Strange Weather, had been anthems of my adolescence. In the studio, Lou directed me as I tried to sing one of his classic songs. He murmured crucial words that set me free, yielding great results.
"I said to Lou Reed in the car on the way home that night, "There's one song of yours that I have always loved so very much Lou ... Candy Says ...
"Years ago at Blacklips we had devoted an entire night to the theme of Candy Darling, with all the toothless drug-addicts parading around in blonde wigs reciting Candy's breathless witticisms and heartbroken diary inscriptions... At the climax of the show, Love Forever lay on the couch on stage while we listened to Lou Reed's song. 'I'm gonna watch the blue birds fly over my shoulder ... I'm gonna watch them pass me by ... Maybe when I'm older... What do you think I'd see... if I could walk away from me?' That great broken innocence echoed in all of our hearts.
"So there I was in the car with Lou Reed, telling him I loved that song. Lou growled, 'It's waiting for you to do it, Antony ... ' The next week at Joe's Pub as Lou sat in the audience, I tried to sing Candy Says. I called for Candy's spirit to fill me; I turned again and something was there. Because I knew that brokenness, that loneliness ... It was so beautiful and I have only Lou to thank for that."
In Sydney, with Lou Reed urging him on yet again, Antony once again conjured up the spirit of Candy. People were in tears - it was a transcendent moment.
