Your Favourite Live Performances (No Concert Footage)

[grindy]

Amazing session. All three are on fire.

[Guybrush]

Gotta love Adrian Belew 🙂👍

Thanks for sharing, @grindy !

[larsvsnapster]

If it will let you watch it, this is my favourite version of this song. 

[innerspaceboy]

If it will let you watch it, this is my favourite version of this song.

Was "Waiting For Mary" from the same set on that show? I remember it being quite a performance.

[ribbons]

John Cale and Lou Reed performing Songs for Drella, their song cycle in memoriam of their mentor Andy Warhol.  Pure opera/lieder with a reunited Cale and Reed singing from both Warhol's and their own shifting perspectives.  Drella is one of my favorite albums, and I think this live taped performance improves on the studio version.  Cale's "The Dream" and Reed's "Hello It's Me" are the ones that get to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKwo3QFWp4c

Songs For Drella:
0:15 Smalltown
2:30 Open House
6:35 Style It Takes
9:27 Work
12:24 Trouble With Classicists
15:57 Starlight
19:18 Faces And Names
23:40 Images
26:57 Slip Away (A Warning)
30:00 It Wasn't Me
33:26 I Believe
36:38 Nobody But You
40:11 A Dream
46:37 Forever Changed
51:50 Hello It's Me

[grindy]

If it will let you watch it, this is my favourite version of this song. 

I love that performance. Good quality Pere Ubu live videos are so rare, I've probably watched everything there is on YT dozens of times.
This was not the best PU period imo but I love pretty much everything they did and they are in great form here.
Care to tell some Pere Ubu stories? Is David Thomas as crotchety as some say?

[larsvsnapster]

I love that performance. Good quality Pere Ubu live videos are so rare, I've probably watched everything there is on YT dozens of times.
This was not the best PU period imo but I love pretty much everything they did and they are in great form here.
Care to tell some Pere Ubu stories? Is David Thomas as crotchety as some say?

He can be.  He's only got crotchety maybe one or two times with me but nothing lasting, the sort of thing where I could tell he wasn't having a great day.   One of the things I pointed out to him and he was really pleased that I caught it, was all the little humorous things running through all their stuff.  He truly does not understand why they've got this reputation of being a Serious Art Rock Band with little humour because if you look hard enough there's something ridiculously funny on nearly every album. 

He's also let the cat out of the bag a few times -- I asked him about "Laughing" because a friend of mine caught the Pere Ubu sense of humour through that song -- specifically the point where David mimics the sax skronk and giggles.  He responded that that was just a rewrite of the movie Badlands and that the title was a code for the idea, based on passing an inn and joking that it was the Laugh Inn. 

As far as "Breath" goes, he told me that the title represents a catch in your breath -- here's our poor boy, walking on the pier, and he's not ever going to get his partner back, and he's coming to realise it.  I forget what other songs the tin can shows up in but there's at least one more.  I got a belly laugh from him when I told him my friend asked "Does he still move about like Joe Cocker to get it out?"  One day I'll get him to explain the "lift the guitar solo and throw it over your shoulder" gesture, because throughout that period he never seemed not to do it, and it seems to be a Jim Jones thing.  Another place to see him perform that particular gesture is when they performed "O Caroline" on Letterman. 

And I'll be really happy if I ever find a tape with the "alphabetical order" version of "Final Solution."  This was something else seeing live, because they took that song into overdrive and suddenly got really quiet, to build it back up again.  I saw them play it at the Knitting Factory and it was very much a case of "they can't overdrive any more than that" and then suddenly being really surprised. 

[larsvsnapster]

Was "Waiting For Mary" from the same set on that show? I remember it being quite a performance.

Yeah, that was the finale of the show.  Debbie Harry sang backup. 

[grindy]

He can be.  He's only got crotchety maybe one or two times with me but nothing lasting, the sort of thing where I could tell he wasn't having a great day.   One of the things I pointed out to him and he was really pleased that I caught it, was all the little humorous things running through all their stuff.  He truly does not understand why they've got this reputation of being a Serious Art Rock Band with little humour because if you look hard enough there's something ridiculously funny on nearly every album. 

He's also let the cat out of the bag a few times -- I asked him about "Laughing" because a friend of mine caught the Pere Ubu sense of humour through that song -- specifically the point where David mimics the sax skronk and giggles.  He responded that that was just a rewrite of the movie Badlands and that the title was a code for the idea, based on passing an inn and joking that it was the Laugh Inn. 

As far as "Breath" goes, he told me that the title represents a catch in your breath -- here's our poor boy, walking on the pier, and he's not ever going to get his partner back, and he's coming to realise it.  I forget what other songs the tin can shows up in but there's at least one more.  I got a belly laugh from him when I told him my friend asked "Does he still move about like Joe Cocker to get it out?"  One day I'll get him to explain the "lift the guitar solo and throw it over your shoulder" gesture, because throughout that period he never seemed not to do it, and it seems to be a Jim Jones thing.  Another place to see him perform that particular gesture is when they performed "O Caroline" on Letterman. 

And I'll be really happy if I ever find a tape with the "alphabetical order" version of "Final Solution."  This was something else seeing live, because they took that song into overdrive and suddenly got really quiet, to build it back up again.  I saw them play it at the Knitting Factory and it was very much a case of "they can't overdrive any more than that" and then suddenly being really surprised. 

Thanks!
Kinda surprised if really that many people see them as overly serious. For me the humour was always plainly visible and an important facet of the overall vibe.

[grindy]

Some Dawg

[grindy]

This is some ridiculously groovy and tight shit. Always happy when a new Yussef Dayes vid gets out, one of the coolest drummers of the younger generation.

[Marie Monday]

John Cale and Lou Reed performing Songs for Drella, their song cycle in memoriam of their mentor Andy Warhol.  Pure opera/lieder with a reunited Cale and Reed singing from both Warhol's and their own shifting perspectives.  Drella is one of my favorite albums, and I think this live taped performance improves on the studio version.  Cale's "The Dream" and Reed's "Hello It's Me" are the ones that get to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKwo3QFWp4c

Songs For Drella:
0:15 Smalltown
2:30 Open House
6:35 Style It Takes
9:27 Work
12:24 Trouble With Classicists
15:57 Starlight
19:18 Faces And Names
23:40 Images
26:57 Slip Away (A Warning)
30:00 It Wasn't Me
33:26 I Believe
36:38 Nobody But You
40:11 A Dream
46:37 Forever Changed
51:50 Hello It's Me

nice to see someone mention songs for drella on here, I love that album

[ribbons]

nice to see someone mention songs for drella on here, I love that album

PS:  "I drew 550 shoes today, it almost made me faint.  Open House."

I love Andy's shoe portraits.


Golden Shoe (Truman Capote)


The Autobiography of Alice B. Shoe


Golden Shoe (Read Miles)

[Mindy]

[grindy]

I'm not usually into child prodigies (they usually bore the fuck out of me) but there is something about this guy I really enjoy.
He's not just a shredder, it really feels like he's developped his style.
Plus his whole style and demeanor is low key hilarious.