The Velvet Underground - The Playhouse, Edinburgh, UK 1993 | ALBUMS THAT SHOULD EXIST

The Velvet Underground - The Playhouse, Edinburgh, Britain, 6-2-1993

The Velvet Underground is one of the most legendary and revered rock bands of all time. But it seems like their 1993 reunion tour has been mostly forgotten. Maybe that's because the only way most people have of judging it, the official live album that documents it, "Live MCMXCIII," was curiously lackluster. Perhaps this concert bootleg will change some minds. I like it a lot, and I much prefer it to the official album.

Velvet Underground member John Cale considered the official album a disappointment, mainly due to the way it was mixed. He later commented:

The trouble is that we had an opportunity here with the live album to really show what the band sounded like and it really doesn't give it to you. Some of the bootlegs that came out of the tour are almost a truer vision of what the band sounded like than the well recorded one, because the well recorded one really didn't take advantage of the ambiance of the room in the mix of the music. And that's what we were always pushing at. We wanted to fill the room up with this noise. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as present in the mix as I would have liked it to be or others would have liked it to be either.

I wonder what Cale would think about this particular bootleg. I didn't post anything from this reunion tour prior to this, because I thought there was nothing but rough audience bootlegs. But I recently discovered this. It's either a soundboard or an FM radio broadcast. Either way, I think the sound quality is as good or better than the official live album.

Now, let me say a little bit about the reunion tour in general. The two main singers and songwriters in the band, Lou Reed and John Cale, put out an album together in 1990, "Songs for Drella." While they toured together to support that album, they were joined on stage for a single song at a concert in France by the other two original members of the Velvet Underground, Maureen Tucker and Sterling Morrison. That set the stage for a reunion tour with all four of them.

The tour began in Edinburgh on June 1, 1993. This was the second night of the tour, also in Edinburgh. Creative juices must have been flowing, because the last song played here, "Coyote," was apparently written jointly by Reed and Cale mere hours before the concert began. That's according to some banter in the concert by Reed. But that also matches the information at setlist.fm, because it wasn't performed on the first night, and this was the first time it was played in public. 

The tour was a relatively short one, hitting different countries in Europe over six weeks. There was a plan to follow it up with a North American tour, a studio album, and more. But relations between band members quickly deteriorated, and all further reunion plans were canceled at the end of the six weeks. So we're very lucky to have this excellent recording from the second night of the tour, before the troubles began. By the way, the "Live MCMXCIII" was recorded over a couple of nights in Paris, France, about two weeks later. So maybe the band was already in decline by then compared to this night, who knows.

John Cale was only in the Velvet Underground for their first two albums, "Velvet Underground and Nico" and "White Light/White Heat." So, not surprisingly, many of the songs in this concert came from those early albums. But it's interesting to see Cale take part in the songs that were recorded after he left, such as "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll." This reunion tour was probably the only time he ever did that. 

Also, Cale didn't sing lead vocals much at all while he was a member of the Velvet Underground, but he did have a long, successful solo career as a lead vocalist afterwards. So I liked how he sang lead on a few of the songs here, taking vocals that had been done by Nico or even by Reed.

Although the bootleg was excellent in most respects, it did have some problems. The biggest problem was that all but the first minute and a half of the song "I Can't Stand It" was missing. So I used the "Live MCMXCIII" version to patch in the rest. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. Also, in some cases (but not most cases), the applause at the ends of songs was cut off. So I patched in applause from the ends of other songs to give every song a normal sounding ending.

Sterling Morrison died of a degenerative disease (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) just two years after this tour, so we're lucky it happened when it did.  

This album is an hour and 55 minutes long. 

01 Real Good Time Together 
02 talk 
03 Venus in Furs
04 talk
05 Guess I'm Falling in Love
06 After Hours 
07 All Tomorrow's Parties
08 Some Kinda Love 
09 I'll Be Your Mirror
10 Beginning to See the Light 
11 The Gift
12 I Heard Her Call My Name 
13 Femme Fatale 
14 talk
15 Hey Mr. Rain 
16 talk 
17 Sweet Jane 
18 Velvet Nursery Rhyme 
19 talk 
20 White Light-White Heat 
21 I'm Sticking with You 
22 The Black Angel's Death Song
23 Rock and Roll
24 talk 
25 I Can't Stand It [Edit] 
26 I'm Waiting for the Man 
27 Heroin 
28 talk
29 Coyote 

Now we’re talking but I already have this one and who doesn’t (sic?) but it has to be worth another shot?