Artist: John Cale
Venue: Verti Music Hall
Location: Berlin,
Germany
Date: 8 December 2018
Setlist:
01. Frozen Warnings [Nico cover]
01. Frozen Warnings [Nico cover]
02. Story of Blood
03. Magritte
04. Hedda Gabler
05. The Endless Plain
of Fortune
06. Chums of Dumpty (We
All Are)
07. Mary
08. Half Past France
09. Amsterdam
10. I Keep a Close
Watch
11. Helen of Troy
12. Wasteland
13. Hatred
14. I'm Waiting for the
Man [Velvet Underground song]
Encore:
15. Emily
The first concert I
ever wrote a review for was a John Cale show that I saw in Vienna
in 2007. (It was originally published on the Fear
Is a Man's Best Friend fansite and later revised for my own blog
once I started it.) Shortly thereafter, I also published a review of
Circus
Live from the same year.
Back then, he already seemed rather old, but he still had a
lot of energy. He was touring with three backing musicians and mixing
elements of rock, pop, drone, and noise.
This concert was billed
as "John Cale & Orchestra", and sure enough, he
appeared on stage with a string section and three horn players
(sousaphone, bass clarinet, and mellophone/trumpet), conducted by
Randall Woolf. However, he also had a rock band backing him up:
Dustin Boyer on guitar, Deantoni Parks on drums, and Joey Maramba on
bass. This time around, Cale's age was more apparent in that he
didn't seem quite as mobile as before, but his voice has remained
strong and he still played his keyboard and guitar with deftness.
Cale opened the show
with a droning cover of Nico's
"Frozen Warnings", the original studio version of which he
arranged and performed on. It was a convincing rendition, an oddly
appropriate tribute, and a strong start to the evening.
Unfortunately, rarely again during the show would Cale manage to
balance vision, palatability, style, experimentation, and
recognizability so effectively. In fact, most of the set felt
deliberately confrontational.
The setlist wandered
across his entire career, from "Amsterdam" from his solo
debut, Vintage Violence
(1970), to "Mary" from his last album of original music,
Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood
(2012). A few songs, such as the latter and the encore "Emily"
(frustratingly performed without the orchestra) were performed rather
straight – as in, close to the beloved and familiar original studio
versions, but perhaps a bit more darkly textured and drawn out. "I
Keep a Close Watch" was also done more like the beauteous and
grand versions from Helen
of Troy (1975) and Music
for a New Society (1982) than
the recent reimagining as an electro-R&B groove from Cale's
latest release M:FANS
(2016).
But
that was about as far as anything comfortable or accommodating went.
"Story of Blood", a new song, was dark, brooding, and
looming. The classic "The
Endless Plain of Fortune" from
Paris 1919 (1973),
originally a lush, dramatic
duel between clear skies and stormclouds, was
spitefully performed without the orchestra. It
instead featured a long
keyboard solo with an unsettlingly cheesy tone. "Half Past
France" was transformed
into an amelodic dirge
augmented by strange samples,
again without the orchestra.
"Hatred", an
obscurity from the Nookie
Wood era, was another intense
and dark morass oddly accompanied by samples of neighing horses.
Thankfully,
not every song was quite that bizarre and difficult. "Magritte"
was about as weird as the original version and almost as good. "Hedda
Gabler", already dark and long in the studio version from the
Animal Justice EP
(1977) was notably heavier and stranger. Instead of the choir and
guitar solo that dominated the second half of the original, Cale let
the orchestra step in to perform an extended, exciting, and varied
instrumental passage. "Helen of Troy" was about as heavy
and aggressive as ever, but it featured a long solo incorporating
Boyer's guitar, the bass clarinet, and the mellophone. It was a
combination I'd never seen before, and it was
fascinating.
"I'm
Waiting for the Man" was another interesting rearrangement. It
is one
of the only Velvet
Underground songs that
Cale
regularly performs, along with "Venus in Furs", despite
that he is not credited with writing either one. However, it was
Cale that gave those songs their trademark sounds. Lou
Reed usually turned "I'm Waiting for the Man" into a
glam or hard rock song. Cale has always done strange things with it.
This time, it was a protracted drone rendition that seemed to erase
most of the chord changes. At least he kept most of the melody, so it
almost felt like something you could hold on to.
The entire show was
also accompanied by a visual projection above the stage designed by
Abby Portner. The psychedelic patterns were about what I would expect
from the sister of Animal Collective's Avey Tare, but some of the
imagery such as an emaciated woman in a swimsuit (during "Wasteland")
was fairly disturbing. A couple other segments also felt a bit
exploitative. It helps to know that the visual artist was a woman,
but the old-timey images of dancing women jarred with Cale's sound
and style.
The aesthetics and
location of the venue also made for a bizarre experience. The venue
is named after an insurance company and only opened in October. The
building is shared with a bunch of international chain restaurants
and stores that I would probably never enter by choice. It sits on
the Mercedes-Platz, which is surrounded by further bland
establishments and filled with coordinated electronic advertising
columns. On one side is the Mercedes-Benz Arena, a building whose
construction in the late 00s was heavily criticized, in part because
the developers convinced the city to shift a section of the nearby
East Side Gallery, a part of the Berlin Wall covered in artwork
created during the reunification. It was my first time ever walking
around the commercial district, and it was terrifying.
Ignoring the
environment, I enjoyed the show, although I'm not sure if Cale wanted
me to. He continues to defy expectations and baffle the unwitting,
but this is the same guy who was kicked out of The Velvet Underground
for being too weird. It's a bold move to hire an orchestra and then
have them sit out on all the songs originally recorded with
orchestral accompaniment. When they did play, it was rarely in a
traditional, melodic style. Even with Cale's aggravating elements,
some songs were still enjoyable, and I appreciate that Cale isn't
willing to compromise. I don't really understand what his goal was,
or what he was trying to get across, but I'm glad that he hasn't
mellowed out with age. He's always been a challenging artist, and it
doesn't look that is going to change any time soon.
Score: C+
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