LOU REED - ALICE TULLY HALL, NY 1973
November 10, 2008 – 4:31 am
Click on the panels for a better view or to download artwork.
LOU REED
New York 1973 [no label, 1CD]
Live at Alice Tully Hall, New York, January 27, 1973. Ex SBD stereo, very clean sound.
It was official. Hell had frozen over, pigs were flying, and Lou Reed was on the edge of superstardom, beating out of every radio in the land with those colored girls going “doo doo doo.” Less than three weeks after this concert, Walk On The Wild Side would become Reed’s first (and so far, only) Billboard chart entry - which, in turn, means this is one of the last recordings you’re going to hear where he’s playing to the converted alone, before the chart-hopping masses stopped grooving to Grand Funk and got into Heroin instead.
A partisan New York audience makes him feel at home, though, and if the band is a little fussier than subsequent Reed combos, the nifty little guitar licks and drum fills that flicker and flash through every song give the performance a cheerful buoyancy that Lou rarely permitted in later years.
Walk And Talk It is pure pop, of course. But so is the opening White Light, and if Waiting For The Man has a subdued sobriety, an unknown onstage voice makes up for it when it demands “cut down on the feedback!” Cut down on the feedback at a Lou Reed gig? Yeah, right.
Oh, and while Heroin is probably the perkiest you’ve ever heard, the encore Sister Ray is positive Partridge Family territory, so cheerful and chipper that you’d never believe that it still rates among the most forebodingly sinister songs Reed has ever written. Shame it truncates at eight minutes, though; there are a longer versions available on other period recordings, and they’re even bouncier!
Excellent (if a teensy bit treble-y) sound, great stereo separation and a solid set that marches through Velvets and solo highlights alike, this might not be the best 1972-1973 era Reed show available, but it’s certainly one of the best quality. - Dave Thompson
Thanks to theface07 for the artwork and mastering.
Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (these are high quality stereo MP3s - sample rate of 192 kibit/s). As far as we can ascertain, this recording has never been officially released.
Note: Due to the size of some of the files, please be patient when downloading the tracks. Kindly email us at mybigo@bigozine.com if you encounter problems downloading the files.
Track 01. White Light/White Heat (5.1MB)
Track 02. Wagon Wheel (5.4MB)
Track 03. I’m Waiting For The Man (9.9MB)
Track 04. Walk And Talk It (5.5MB)
Track 05. Sweet Jane (7.1MB)
Track 06. New Age (5.5MB)
Track 07. Vicious (4.7MB)
Track 08. I Can’t Stand It (5.2MB)
Track 09. Satellite Of Love (5.0MB)
Track 10. Heroin (12.3MB)
Track 11. I’m So Free (5.5MB)
Track 12. Walk On The Wild Side (9.6MB)
Track 13. Rock & Roll (7.5MB)
Track 14. Sister Ray (12.2MB)
Click here to order Lou Reed albums.
Click here for more reviews by Dave Thompson.
4 Responses to “LOU REED - ALICE TULLY HALL, NY 1973”
Thanks for the Lou Reed downloads. Please can we have some more from this living legend. Keep up the great work.
ALL THE BEST > Willie.
By Willie Gray on Nov 10, 2008
More Lou please and even some Velvet Underground, John Cale & Nico
By Matt on Nov 16, 2008
This is a great recording from a classic era for Lew.
How about some stuff form the classic 80’s Quine/Saunders/Maher lineup.
By Luis Torregrosa on Dec 21, 2008
More Nico please
By christa on May 9, 2009