Laurie Anderson & Lou Reed in Manchester
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Laurie Anderson & Lou Reed in Manchester
by supermo Sun Jul 19, 2009 9:01 pm
To Manchester, to witness the rebirth of the city centre after last year's Uefa Cup trauma, the marks of which can still be seen in St Peter's Square. We stumbled into the "gay quarter" temporarily en route to the Palace Theatre, nothing but "Rangers FTP" scrawls around Canal St to show that Crown Liquor had been there before, probably for miscellaneous arse banditry. 
The Palace Theatre is beautiful inside, one of those wedding cake theatres, great acoustics too:
Unfortunately it's also the only theatre I can think of that strictly enforces the "no photography" rule that everyone else ignores. Tried to get round this by using a phone with no flash, so apologies for quality. They told me off twice, before getting heavy with a woman who had a digi with flash. She's probably in Strangeways now, being baited by bull dyke guards and probed inappropriately with night-sticks.
Anderson is left, Reed on the right, with a tech called Sarth Calhoun of Lucibel Crater playing ref:
Thought I'd at least get some great shots of them taking a bow, but just at that point some incontinent fat dyke returned from the lavvy and stood in the aisle gesturing for her bitch to come out of the row in front. Bang went my chance of defying the Palace Theatre stasi and this was all I got beforehand: sorry Crown, I know you like your shots in high-res close-up
Reed was brilliant, intriguing and frustrating, as ever. Played very deconstructed versions of two Velvets songs (Mirror, Blue Eyes) and two tracks from the New York album (Romeo & Halloween Parade), which is now 20 years old. the real revelation for me was Laurie Anderson. I've never really got into her stuff but she was fantastic, very clever material and some great delivery. Found this track from YouTube as an example of the sort of stuff she was doing last night:
The Palace Theatre is beautiful inside, one of those wedding cake theatres, great acoustics too:
Unfortunately it's also the only theatre I can think of that strictly enforces the "no photography" rule that everyone else ignores. Tried to get round this by using a phone with no flash, so apologies for quality. They told me off twice, before getting heavy with a woman who had a digi with flash. She's probably in Strangeways now, being baited by bull dyke guards and probed inappropriately with night-sticks.
Anderson is left, Reed on the right, with a tech called Sarth Calhoun of Lucibel Crater playing ref:
Thought I'd at least get some great shots of them taking a bow, but just at that point some incontinent fat dyke returned from the lavvy and stood in the aisle gesturing for her bitch to come out of the row in front. Bang went my chance of defying the Palace Theatre stasi and this was all I got beforehand: sorry Crown, I know you like your shots in high-res close-up
Reed was brilliant, intriguing and frustrating, as ever. Played very deconstructed versions of two Velvets songs (Mirror, Blue Eyes) and two tracks from the New York album (Romeo & Halloween Parade), which is now 20 years old. the real revelation for me was Laurie Anderson. I've never really got into her stuff but she was fantastic, very clever material and some great delivery. Found this track from YouTube as an example of the sort of stuff she was doing last night: