Lou Reed

Even if you consider yourself to be a hardcore Lou Reed fan, chances are you’d find it pretty tough to find anything cool or worthwhile about this DVD of Reed and his band performing live in Spain in August 2004.

Poor ol’ Lou; the years have not been kind. For starters, he looks awful, corpse-like. Moreover, for an artist of Reed’s magnitude, to be caught on film looking completely bewildered more than once as he kept forgetting the words to his own songs, it’s downright sad.

Classic, timeless rock songs from his Velvet Underground heydays such as ‘Sweet Jane’ and ‘Perfect Day’ sounded flat, with vocals that are badly off-key and with Reed’s glaring inability on guitar to keep up with the rest of his band.

Of his more popular solo efforts from years gone by, the beautiful and powerful ‘Romeo Had Juliet’ from his 1989 album New York was reduced to forgettable fodder. The band kicked into this song full-on (six songs into the set) and it started out incredibly well, with the Spanish audience pumping their fists in enthusiastic unison, only for it all to drain away as Reed struggled to remember the guitar chords, and then the lyrics. As a result, the band dredged through more than 10 minutes of this three chord boondoggle that ensured anyone watching would get a nice, thick eye-glaze goin’ before it was all over.

Likewise, the rendition of ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ was absolutely terrible, though it was on par with the near non-existent light show for this performance.

Some rockers just fade away. In Reed’s case, he should just go away and count his royalty cheques from finer days long gone. Avoid purchasing this DVD at all costs.