LOU REED 1974-08-17 Adelaide, Australia (upgrade from the Waz From Oz archive)

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LOU REED 1974-08-17 Adelaide, Australia (upgrade from the Waz From Oz archive)

Post by schnittstelle » 06 Jan 2019 12:33

LOU REED 1974-08-17 Adelaide, Australia (upgrade from the Waz From Oz archive)


Description
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LOU REED

1974 Australian Tour

Festival Theatre
Adelaide, South Australia
17th August 1974

Unknown If This Is The Early Or Late Show


2019 Upgrade version


01. tuning Up
02. Intro
03. Sweet Jane
04. Vicious
05. Ride Sally Ride
06. Heroin
07. Sally Can’t Dance
08. Lady Day
09. I’m Waiting For The Man
10. Oh Jim (End Cut)
11. Walk On The Wild Side (Fades Out)


The Band

Lou Reed – Vocals
Danny Weiss – Guitar
Michael Fonfara – Keyboards
Mouse Johnson – Drums
Peter Johnson – Bass Guitar

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Thanks To Ken For The Adelaide Newspaper Articles
2018 Cassette Transfer Thanks To audiowhore
Artwork By Waz From Oz

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Transferred from an unknown generation cassette, given to me in the early 80’s by WGL ;-)
Not the greatest recording but thanks to audiowhore’s magic it’s now an upgrade compared to all previous versions that exist out there.
It’s been speed & pitch corrected with some balance and mixing thrown in.
There’s a few faults in this recording such as a few sound drop / issues but nothing to stop one's enjoyment of the show.
Sadly though it is an incomplete recording.


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Lou was somewhat chatty in Adelaide compared to other 1974 Australian shows, after Sweet Jane he says “What about our guitar player” & then something mostly undecipherable about the 1st night something.
After Ride Sally Ride Lou engages members of what the Adelaide reviewer of the concert called the 'effeminate assembly' right up at the front of the stage.
You can’t hear what starts this to & fro episode but one can hear the following dialogue unfurl-

Lou “Try being a star”
In distance an audience member yells “I am!”
Lou “I know, that’s why you’re down there!”
In distance an audience member yells “f*** offfff!”
Wolf whistle from audience
Lou “You’re right”.

No idea why but he tells someone in the audience he already “Did it” after I’m Waiting For My Man.

He tells the audience to suffer in Walk On The Wild Side.

Only one review could be found of Lou's two Adelaide shows, 'Lou Reed deadpan and cold' and this is reprinted further below.
According to this review, a member of Adelaide’s 'effeminate assembly', apparently clad in sequins, managed to clamber (or maybe pirouetted ;-)) onto the stage to dance with or around Lou before being unceremoniously flung from the stage.

What is the 'effeminate assembly' you ask?

The reviewer was no doubt referring to the number of gay men (along with a few lesbians plus the odd drag queen) who attended Lou's 1974 Australian concerts.
The more flamboyant of whom successfully managed to run to the front of the stage right under Lou, where they would proceed to camp it up for Lou’s benefit.
Lou would at times return this campness to this group until he became bored. The Adelaide reviewer called it 'mechanical fag dancing'!

I saw this scenario play out at both Sydney shows I attended.
In Australia, gays seemed to pick up on Lou’s solo career much earlier than the general public did.
Thanks to the Transformer LP with its gay themed songs / lyrics, plus the album's back cover photos of the drag queen & leather man with his stuffed crotch reinforced the question of 'Is this Lou Reed bloke gay?'.
Add the gay references in Walk On The Wild Side which certainly piqued their interest in him so in their eyes Lou was dead set fabulous, you know he must be one of us scenario.
Bottom line, Lou’s songs & lyrics were decidedly different from the norm & that ranked highly with those who were themselves different.
All of this was helped along by the Australian music press and the gay & straight press who ran stories about this songwriter from New York who was about to visit our shores & whom wrote songs about gays, drag queens, sex changes, drugs & other no no’s!
A good proportion of these stories had gay undertone’s without actually saying if Lou was gay or not.
Lou’s campiness in answering certain questions at the Sydney airport press conference on 12 August 1974 no doubt helped to fuel the fire.

Enjoy, Waz

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The Adelaide Advertiser
Monday August 19, 1974
'Lou Reed deadpan and cold'
By IAN MEIKLE

"American cult-hero Lou Reed turned the warm buzz of Saturday night at the Festival Theatre into the sinister loneliness of a strange city.
Whores, drugs and homosexuals were the gritty gut-issues of his music, delivered with cold, deadpan intonation.
Picture the punk king of New York strutting into the stark spotlight : slight build, black T-shirt tight crumpled trousers, his close-cropped head and wasted wan face hiding between large dark glasses.
His thin lips draw nervously on a cigarette, he clutches the microphone like a life line and breaks into the pacy “Sweet Jane.”
The mechanical fag dancing begins. With limp hands and shaking hips he baits an effeminate assembly at the front.
He spits and swigs beer between numbers indifferently rolling through classics “Vicious” “Lady Day” “Heroin” and “Walk On The Wild Side.”
At the scorching rocker “White Light White Heat” Reed again gives the come-on and a guy hurdles the stage to steal a harmless dance.
By the next note the sequinned soul is brutally swept from the theatre by menacing security guards. Lou seems to sneer.
Perhaps he liked that. The viciousness left me uneasy.
Possibly the most palatable part of Reed’s act was his incredible water-tight backing band with blitzing lead guitarist Danny Weiss screwing some amazing sounds from his instrument.
Reed returned for a belligerent encore of “Rock-n-Roll” then ambled arrogantly from the stage to light applause.
Others obviously shared my feeling of anti-climax.


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The Australian 1974 Tour Dates

12th August 1974 – Lou arrives at Sydney’s Mascot Airport, where the infamous media conference took place.
13th August 1974 - Hordern Pavilion, Sydney – 'A Earlier Blonde' show
15th August 1974 - Festival Hall, Melbourne
17th August 1974 - Festival Theatre, Adelaide – Afternoon & Evening Shows
19th August 1974 - Festival Hall, Melbourne
20th August 1974 - Festival Hall, Melbourne
21st August 1974 - Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
22nd August 1974 - Festival Hall, Brisbane
25th August 1974 - Hordern Pavilion, Sydney – 'The Blondes More Fun Show'

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at DaD