Lou Reed
2012-06-20
Zitadelle
Berlin, Germany

Church Audio CA 14 Cardioids > Sony RH1 (PCM-mode) > Hi-MD > Sonic Stage > wav > Audacity (level adjustments, trackmarking, some leveller for close clapping) > TLH > flac level 8

recorded 10 m from stage, right side

TRT: 107:57 min

01. intro
02. Brandenburg Gate
03. Heroin
04. I’m Waiting For The Man
05. Senslessly Cruel
06. The View
07. Mistress Dread
08. Street Hassle
09. Cremation – Ashes To Ashes
10. Think It Over
11. Walk On The Wild Side
12. Sad Song
13. Junior Dad
14. band introduction

– encore –
15. Beginning To See The Light
16. Sweet Jane

Lou Reed – vocals, guitar
Tony Diodore – guitar, violin, vocals
Aram Bajakian – guitar
Rob Wassermann – electric bass, double bass
Tony “Thunder” Smith – drums
Kevin Hearn – keyboards
Ulrich Krieger – sax
Allison Weiss – vocals
Sarth Calhoun – electronics

70th birthday and the announcement of a tour with a career spanning setlist sounds a bit like impending retirement and the last chance to hear a significant part of the soundtrack of my youth live again, worth a couple of hundreds kilometers of autobahn. And it certainly was – worth it, not really a career spanning setlist, I could have done with a little less “Lulu” and some “New York” instead, but it was a nice mix of the Velvet classics with new Lulu songs sounding better live than on the CD. Nothing to complain about, a magnificent “Street Hassle”, great “Sad Song” and all the crowd pleasers got played. Basically the same setlist as the rest of the tour, but the opening songs played out a little less long, giving time for an encore of two songs.

A great show and a very fine touring band, all of them highly acomplished musicians, Wassermann on bass and Diodore on guitar & violin standing out with Smith providing the solid backbone on drums.
The sound was good (as far as that is possible open air) a few minor problems at the beginning – like overpowering cimbals and hardly audible sax – sorted out rather fast. The master was pleased, showed his appreciation several times and seemed to care, giving signs to the soundman a couple of times when the sax stood out too much or something else didn’t find his fancy.

Lou Reed standing stoically in the middle, a little back, a still great and intense diliverance of the vocals, less enthusiastic on the guitar, but why should he with so many able guitarists on stage. The mood seemed fine, not that he’d have talked much, but the gestures were benign. Exuded a strange mixture of vigor and frailty, like when he had his guitars strapped on by a minion (but maybe that was not due to a stiffnes of joints but one of the privileges of stardome).

The recording sounds better than I would have expected – I expected it to be unlistenable. The conditions were the worst imaginable. Open air, a serious rain before the show turning into drizzle turning from vertical to nearly horizontal by an increasing breeze from the right, most of the audience wearing flimsy plastic rain protectors, the feet creating crunching noises on the small gravel during the quieted parts, the sound overall a little wavering by the wind conditions.
I tried to protect the mics as good as possible, creating a few handling noises once in a while – but all in all it’s listenable, at least the loud parts.

I lowered a couple of volume spikes, limited close clapping manually, raised the overall levels by 1 dB. Missed about 1 minute of the encore break due to change of md – joined the gap seamless.