Lou Reed
Perfect Night
[Reprise]
Rating: 3.1
Okay, so listening to a nineties Lou Reed performance isn't quite as
horrific as being subjected to nineties Van Morrison, but it's still kind of
sad. Let's lay bare the biases: the Velvet Underground are the shit, and
Reed's Transformer is glorious, but almost everything he's produced
since has been second- rate. Still, I was really hoping Perfect Night,
which draws from some of Reed's most popular solo work ("Perfect Day",
"Vicious", "Dirty Blvd."), would be a charged affair to remember.
Then I read the liner notes. Reed bought an expensive acoustic guitar,
plugged it into an amp and "feedbucker" (a box that eliminates feedback),
and used it for this gig at the Royal Festival Hall, London. Well,
eliminate feedback he did. Sometimes the audience doesn't recognize songs
until halfway through the first verse, and sometimes they aren't sure when
the songs are over. Is it 'cause they're Brits? Have they fallen asleep?
Give the disc a listen, and you won't notice as the songs breeze by, either.
In contrast to the classic 1969 Velvet Underground Live album, where Reed
and his pals expand on hooks and grooves to give brilliant reinterpretations
of the material, all the tunes here are pale imitations of the originals.
The majority of the tracks here will go unnoticed as you clean up your room,
reply to old e-mails, or take a nap. "Busload of Faith", "Coney Island
Baby", and "New Sensations" deserve special mention for the band's insipid
substitution of turning up for turning on, and vocally, Reed is into these
tunes about as much as a sports announcer gets into pitching ads during
commercial breaks.
When it comes down to it, Perfect Night is only as good as the players:
three studio hacks and one awkwardly aging rock legend. If, as Reed notes
in his thank yous, this is "the band that played as one," then I guess the
best we can hope for next time around is a collective retirement.
-Zach Hammerman