Once upon a time, in a world very different from today, the Velvet Underground were not iconic totems of would-be outsider-dom. The Rolling Stone Record Guide for 1980, recently bought by Cultureberg, only lists records available and in print at that juncture. It is gushing about The Velvet Underground and Nico and Loaded (which were available) but only mentions White Light White Heat and the eponymous Third in passing, as they were only available in second hand stores or the record collections of older, wiser compatriots. This state of affairs is as inconceivable to todays young hipster as the telly switching off after Watch with Mother for two hours of the testcard transmission. Wot, no Sister Ray! No Pale Blue Eyes!
Like many, my introduction to the VU, was via a compilation - with a somewhat random track selection, a single album which did include Sister Ray as most of side 2 - but enough to pique interest. It was word of mouth, a whisper to the wise. Though I didn't go off and form a band, as Eno imagined everyone did, like many of the droves who attended the 50th anniversary show of The Velvet Underground and Nico at Liverpool Sound City, I formed one in my head. The congregation, drawn across the age span from greying groovers to the young and desperate, seemed to share a common pleasure, and an unspoken connection. The defining characteristic of adolescence, and terminal extended adolescence, is a belief that you are different and trailblazing while acting exactly like everyone else.
The Cultureberg Dyad arrived about 7:30, aware that security after Manchester (4 days previous) might be tight, and were travelling light (no I-pad). Sadly, the venue was a downer; no waterside stage gazing across the waves to New York, instead a rubble and gravel car-park, swirling dust bouffanting the hair and nestling in eye sockets. Well, okay, the VU always appeared at unusual venues and their avant-garde beat group always ripped it up. It'll be great. It had been the hottest day of the year, maybe nearly 30 degrees of heat. On stage was a guy with an acoustic guitar, gamely trying to engage the crowd flowing in. He was virtually inaudible, mismatched. Then followed nigh on two hours with nothing to do, nowhere to sit (not even a mound of grass), like an ante room to nowhere. Luckily we managed to cop a couple of drinks and a plastic bottle of wine, as pretty soon the assembling hipsters formed serpentine queues which were taking maybe an hour to reach the bar. I joined a queue and my neighbours weren't sure where the queue was leading to, so I quit it. Okay, the first thing that you learn is that you always have to wait, I get that, yes we are all part of a piece of performance art, but I'm sure no-one would not have queued for an hour for a beer back in 1967. (I recall on one bootleg, Lou Reed shouting out, "Oi! Malanga! Put down that whip an get em in...it's your round!") In Liverpool the bovine caravan of resigned punters (might as well queue, nowt else to do) shuffled slowly and acquiescently without complaint. O pardon me sir, it's farthest from my mind.
On with the show. Straight into I'm Waiting for my Man, seguing into White Light White Heat, played straight-ahead rockanroll with Cale stage front pounding the ivories. Excellent. Big roar. The rest of the show, dear reader, was a curates egg, and whilst some of the rearrangements seemed interesting (Cale is not one to fall back on the familiar for too long (he did Lady Godiva's Operation, so was clearly willing to test an audience)), the sound was a bit, well, quiet, subtlety whirling away in the dust and wind. Half way through and attention was wavering - it needed to be indoors, or there to be some use of the big side-stage screens to draw the audience in instead of some by rote images and graphics. But there was a good buzz where we were stood and banter a plenty.
And the Friends...hmmm...none got introduced when they shuffled on, and though Cultureberg would profess to surf the zeitgeist, like those stood around us, it was near impossible to tell The Guy from Super Furry Animals from The Guy from Wild Beasts from The Guy from Fat White Family (and I've seen two of their host bands a couple of times). It was easy to spot The Guy From The Kills and The Girl from The Kills as they threw Stadium Rock Shapes and were rockanroll in a very American vein. Favourite Friend was Nadine Shah, whose northern twang added a similar individuality to Femme Fatale as Nico's own particular regionalism had done to the original.
By the time of the endless finale of Sister Ray, one might have wondered if this was a Brechtian device employed to alienate the audience or merely an essay in Stadium Boogie. The whole cast were frugging away like Sunday Night at the Liverpool Palladium, a lot of whoo-ooing was going on, but there was something lacking. Madame Cultureberg snuck into the VIP area in front of the stage (unlike the many unlucky VIPs for a night who couldn't get through), and after 20 or 30 minutes of Sister Ray someone decided to wrap it up and the Corporation carpark emptied as the last echoes resounded and souvenir plastic cups rattled on the dusty floor.
I think the French have a word for it - defrissonment - and sadly a combination of the even handed distribution of anonymous and indistinct guest vocalists and the festival stage's underwhelming PA, seemingly constructed by Local Authority Committee (with a mixture of disdain, tight-wadded-ness and civic jollity), conspired to excise the frisson, the pleasurable shiver, that tied the assembled groovers' together. Maybe that's what was taken out during Lady Godiva's Operation. The 50 year old Album, and maybe even more so the White Light White Heat LP, teeter between surly transgression and a frosty honesty. It may have been unreasonable to expect to be taken back to the moment of discovery and immersion of such feelings, so it is pleasing to report that, nevermind, we all had ourselves a real good time, the folks were really nice , there was a good craic going on. We managed to sneak into the undersubscribed, probably VIP, bar, to keep the thirst slaked and after being reunited via a stewards loudhailer like infants at a carnival, we took three times longer to walk back to the top Travelodge on the Mersey's banks than it took to arrive, ending up somewhere near the city limits (a combination of alcohol and lack of ipad - Oh modern jeopardy! ) flagging down a taxi back to the room just before a very VU type of resigned despair set in.
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