Last night, I had the immense privilege of seeing John Cale and his band in a 19th century, 450-capacity town centre venue on the edge of the Cotswolds.
I'm still pinching myself to check that I didn't dream the entire thing. But I've a ticket in my pocket. And photos on my phone that are so grainy and amateur that they could only have been taken by me. So it really did happen.
It very nearly didn't though. On a morning in mid-May, I received a text from Mike asking if I'd seen that the gig had been announced. By the time I got online, it had already sold out. So I joined the waiting list, with little expectation that I'd have another shot. However, I subsequently got an email to say that a handful of tickets had been released. Second time lucky, I was able to buy a couple of tickets, for myself and Mrs. K.
To say that Mrs. K was taking a leap of faith is an understatement. Not particularly au fait with John Cale, I was hoping that his set might be leaning more heavily towards his more accessible material rather than an improvised 90-minute viola drone. His latest album, Mercy, is fantastic but it's a densely layered reflective work and not necessarily a go-to introduction to the artist. Two weeks ago, we saw Bad Manners in concert (well, kind of), so this was about as diametrically opposed as you can get...!
The venue itself was a good selling point. Only the second time that I've been to The Subscription Rooms in Stroud but it's a lovely venue, looking wonderfully grand on the approach and on entering and going up the stairs. Once inside the performance space however, it evokes the feel of a village hall or school disco, albeit on a grander scale. The fact that this was a seated gig only added to the feel as we took our seats, right at the end of a row and to the right of the stage.
"For once," Mrs. K commented, looking around at the gathering audience, "we seem to have brought the average age down not up!". She was right. The significance of a seated gig suddenly became more apparent. A large chunk of the gathering may not manage a sustained period of standing...!
The box office weren't able to provide much information in advance, other than the audience needed to be seated by 8.00pm, they didn't think that there was a support band but there 'might' be an interval and, either way, weekday gigs tended to be finished no later than 10.30pm.
As it happens, there was no support band and no interval, John Cale and band coming on and playing continuously from 8.10pm to 9.45pm. Mrs. K and I were home less than an hour later. But what a 90-odd minutes of music.
The set got off to a rousing start with obscurity Jumbo (In Tha Modern World) which was released in 2006 as a promo CD and as a bonus 7" with the 2007 Circus Live album. From there, a couple of songs from Mercy, including a moving tribute to Nico, images of her and a Velvets-period John Cale appearing on the backdrop.
The
atmospheric synth washes of the Mercy material is more muscular on
stage, due to the live rhythm section. Not a bad thing at all, as it
replaces the cold emotion of the studio with an earthier humanity that
ties the mix of old and new material together.
There's a good mix of old material with some surprising (to me, at least) inclusions such as Hanky Panky Nohow from 1973's Paris 1919, here in a low-slung, downtempo funk version which is much better than it sounds. 1980 B-side Rosegarden Funeral Of Sores also gets an airing, which I first heard when Bauhaus covered it a couple of years later. Wasteland from 2005's Black Acetate is another unexpected though welcome addition.
This is a 'strictly business' performance: enthusiastic (but seated) applause at the end of each song, no between song banter or anecdotes. "This one's in B Flat", John states by way of introduction to a wonderfully, er, gutsy version of Guts. When you have songs with opening lines like "The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife" though, who needs introductions?!
1975 album Helen Of Troy is the best represented, with a couple of songs, back-to-back. The title track is up first, John leaving his keyboard to take up guitar to the left of the stage. It's a heavy rendition for the first four minutes which then gets even heavier for what seems like a twenty minute extended stop-start riff, John with his back to the audience and facing the band. Mrs. K and I laughed afterwards at imagining the same scenario of John desperately wanting to end the song and the band continually missing his cue, forcing them to do round after round, ad infinitum. I thought it was brilliant.
Another sign of the, shall we say, more mature audience was that following this riff-tastic performance, as the band launched into the other Helen Of Troy song, there was a mass exodus for the bar/toilet (or both). I guess a fair few were hanging on the box office's vague promise that there 'might' be an interval....! It was a good version of Cable Hogue for those that stuck around to witness it.
John returned to the keyboard for a trio of songs from Mercy - Out Your Window, the title track and Noise Of You. In a hark back to The Velvet Underground expertly played chaos, there were times when his chords seemed deliberately at odds with the song that the rest of the band were playing though this surely intentional dissonance only added to my enjoyment. I was just completely rapt throughout the concert.
It seemed over all too soon. After flipping back and forth a few pages in his song book, John turned to the band, said 'Barracuda' and launched into said song from 1974 album Fear, never a single but a #1 hit in an alternative universe. It was a great way to end the set, John gave thanks to the audience and they all departed through the stage curtain at the side.
After a few minutes, the band returned to the stage for what proved to be the sole encore, Villa Albani. Another deep cut, the closing song from 1984's Caribbean Sunset holds a personal significance for me as it was the first John Cale album I owned, a birthday present from my friend Stu when I was still a teen (just about). I'm not going to pretend it's John Cale's best album, or my favourite, but it means a lot to me and I think Villa Albani is one of the standouts so it was fitting that this was the closing song.
At this point, John introduced his band: Dustin Boyer (guitar), Joey Maramba (bass) and Alex Thomas (drums). They've been respectively playing with John Cale since 2005, 2011 and 2012 and it shows: they were tight and equally able to lay down a foundation or follow the flow, as John required. The expectation that this might lead to another encore was swiftly squashed as John thanked the audience again and hoped to see us soon, before heading off stage. And that was really it.
This may be the only opportunity for me to see John Cale live on stage and certainly in such an intimate setting. It was an unforgettable experience.
1) Jumbo (In Tha Modern World) (2006)
2) Night Crawling (2023)
3) Moonstruck (Nico's Song) (2023)
4) Hanky Panky Nohow (1973)
5) Rosegarden Funeral Of Sores (1980)
6) Guts (1975)
7) Helen Of Troy (1975)
8) Cable Hogue (1975)
9) Out Your Window (2023)
10) Mercy (ft. Laurel Halo) (2023)
11) Noise Of You (2023)
12) Wasteland (2005)
13) Barracuda (1974)
14) Villa Albani (1984)
1973: Paris 1919: 4
1974: Fear: 13
1975: Slow Dazzle: 6
1975: Helen Of Troy: 7, 8
1980: Mercenaries (Ready For War) EP: 5
1984: Caribbean Sunset: 14
2005: Black Acetate: 12
2006: Jumbo (In Tha Modern World) EP: 1
2023: Mercy: 2, 3, 9, 10, 11
Waiting For My Hearing To Return (1:04:05) (KF) (Mega)
Earlier this year, in celebration of John Cale's 81st birthday, I posted a Dubhed selection which you can find here. By happy accident, only one song (Guts) is repeated in the above setlist.
Thanks for bearing with me and my later-than-usual post. Our regularly scheduled post will return tomorrow.
