LOU REED 1977-10-29 Sydney, Australia - new transfer from Waz from Oz master tape

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LOU REED 1977-10-29 Sydney, Australia - new transfer from Waz from Oz master tape

Post by schnittstelle » 01 Dec 2019 07:02

LOU REED 1977-10-29 Sydney, Australia - new transfer from Waz from Oz master tape


Description
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Lou Reed

1977 Australian Rock And Roll Heart Tour
Hordern Pavilion
Sydney, New South Wales
Australia
29th October 1977

CD 1
01. Sweet Jane
O2. Rock And Roll Heart
03. I Wanna Be Black
04. Rock And Roll > You Keep Me Hanging On
05. Walk On The Wild Side

CD 2
01. Shooting Star
02. Satellite Of Love
03. Coney Island Baby
04. Banging On My Drum
Encore
05. Leave Me Alone
06. Stage Announcement

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Recording By Waz From Oz & Ruby
Hordern 29th October 1977 Photos By Big Knob
Artwork By Waz From Oz
2019 transfer from master cassette by audiowhore

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transfer: Sony C90 master cassette > Luxman K-322 > azimuth > recorded in Audition at 96-24 > pitch and speed correction > mixing > some hard limit on crowd noise > convert to 44.1-16 > FLAC8 (audiowhore)
This is the only known source for this show.

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The Band
LOU REED : Vocals & Guitar
Michael Fonfara : Keyboards
Richard Fliegler : Guitar
Stuart Heinrich : Guitar & Backing Vocals
Jo’Anna Kameron : Vocals
Michael Suchorsky : Drums
Bruce Yako : Bass Guitar & Backing Vocals

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Rock And Roll Heart 1977 Australian Tour Dates and known appearances:
25th October - Sydney airport press conference
25th October - Double-J FM, Sydney radio station, Lou as DJ
26th October - Festival Hall, Brisbane, QLD
28th October - Civic Hall, Newcastle, NSW
29th October - Hordern Pavilion, Sydney, NSW
31st October - Canberra Theatre, Canberra, ACT - Two Shows, Early & Late
1st November - Regent Theatre, Albury, NSW
2nd November - Palais Theatre, Melbourne, VIC
5th November - Apollo Stadium, Adelaide, SA
7th November - Entertainment Centre, Perth, WA
10th November - State Theatre, Sydney, NSW

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This show is possibly one of my favourites of the Lou Reed shows I've attended, firstly because it was from start to finish a great rock and roll concert and secondly it was my first one-on-one encounter with Lou.
Sadly, of all the times that I taped Lou (1974, 1975, 1977, 2000, 2003 & 2007) the sound quality of this one unfortunately is the most average of them all.
Two reasons for this, firstly my trusty cassette recorder was on its last legs & secondly even though Ruby & myself were in the middle section on the floor from the get-go everybody stood on their seats. The Sydney Morning Herald review of the show (see below) states that by the 40-minute mark the reviewer couldn't see the stage, but I remember it a bit differently as people started standing on their chairs pretty much from the start when Lou took to the stage.

Ruby & I are both 5 foot 6 (176cm) & everyone around us were much taller, even more so when standing on their chairs which not only blocked our view but also the sound making the sound of this recording somewhat muffled & muddy.
We only got to see Lou when he first walked on stage & later when at separate times after handing over taping duties to each other we made our way to the front of the stage.
More about my journeys to the stage later.
The audience never sat down which is why you’ll hear shouts of ‘sit down’ throughout the show including the pleas of a gentleman whose view was blocked yelling out “Sit down potatoes”. I’ve no idea why he chose to refer audience members as potatoes instead of something more vulgar as I would have done. Listen out for the communal yell of “Sit down ya bastards” & “Sit down ya arse is on fire” in Satellite Of Love!

Being immature 21-year olds we both loved the dead set dirty, racist, sexist lyrics in I Wanna Be Black. They would be considered offensive now but at the time it was just Lou being Lou.
I've read on a Lou Reed fan site that the 29th October 1977 Sydney 20 minute time length of this song is the longest version captured on a bootleg recording.
IWB Black & the other new unknown to us song played at this show, Shooting Star (which became a favourite of mine) we had to wait until February 1978 to hear studio versions on the Street Hassle LP.
I was surprised to find on that LP I Wanna Be Black was only 2.55 in duration.
The other unreleased song played at this concert Leave Me Alone we had already heard before on the 1975 tour, that song also was finally released on Street Hassle.
I really liked Lou's Rock And Roll Heart released the year before so I was pleased to hear two songs from it but would have liked to have heard more.
A big surprise at this gig was the coupling of The Supreme’s / Vanilla Fudge’s 1960’s hit You Keep Me Hanging Me that came in the latter part of Rock And Roll with the lead vocals being sung by backing vocalist Jo’Anna Kameron and Lou doing the harmonies. For the Australian leg of The Rock And Roll Heart Tour, the sax player Marty Fogel & keyboard player Michael Fonfara were dropped and another guitarist Richard Fliegler was added.

Sometime during the first 20-odd minutes of the show I handed over the recording duties to Ruby & moved towards the stage where I spotted a friend of ours in the front row. The B/W photo that comes with this torrent & is also the back-cover artwork shows just how close the audience at the front of the stage were to Lou & how low the stage was.
Without too much trouble I managed to get next to our friend who was directly under Lou. I noticed on the base of his microphone stand that there was a strip of white masking tape with the words MR. REED written in red on it. I gathered up the courage to hoist myself up to my waist onto the lip of the stage, reached over & pulled the masking tape off. Lou just gave me a short downward look & kept on singing. I slid back down putting the masking tape in my pocket, said goodbye to my mate & went back to Ruby to take over recording duties.

I am 100% positive when I’ve blown this photo up that the person directly under Lou in the raised position is myself, well the back of my head / shoulders.
After a few years of having short back & sides by October of 1977 I had grown my hair longer into a curly shaggy style, which when the photo is fully blown up I can make out my hairdo plus you can see the white strip of masking tape is still there on the left side of the microphone stand base. So this photo captures me seconds before I reached over & peeled the masking tape off.
Somewhere I still have that strip of masking tape but after searching high & low for it over the past few weeks I can’t find it. Am sure it’s inside a book, but what book?

Later, I ventured back down to the front again to be with my mate under Lou but this time a 6ft plus guy dressed in punk finery was standing next to him. He presented to me a round badge with a picture of the Sex Pistols with the name of the band on it. He asked me if I could reach over & pin this badge onto the cuff of Lou’s jeans. I thought about it for a moment & said ok. So once again I hoisted myself up, reached over to Lou’s jeans, grabbed the cuff with one hand & pinned the badge to the cuff of his jeans with the other. Lou didn’t flinch, didn’t make any attempt to stop me & just like before he looked down at me as I pinned it to his cuff. BUT as I withdrew my hand, he launched an almighty kick at my arm, which luckily for me missed. Once back on the floor I tried to hide behind my friend & the chap who gave me the badge.
Shortly afterwards Lou lit up a cigarette & with a scowl on his face scanned the front of the stage. I just knew he was looking for me & on spotting me he took the cigarette out of his mouth & threw it in my general direction which like his kick missed me. I thought I better make myself scarce & decided to go back to resume my taping duties, allowing Ruby to go up to the stage.
Little did I know then that this was the first of my several Lou encounters.

Two thoughts I’ve carried with me for years are:
1. Why did this bloke who was so much taller than me & who could have easily with no effort so whatever pinned the badge on Lou himself, ask me to do it? Perhaps he had seen me get the masking tape & thought if I was bold enough to do something like this that I would be up for another go or he feared Lou turning on him like a cut snake!
2. Did Lou keep the Sex Pistols Badge on his jeans cuff or take it off? It was still there when I escaped his kick. Ruby thinks it was still attached when he went up the front after I returned. Much later I asked our friend who was next to me for both the masking tape unpeeling & the badge pinning, but he couldn’t remember one way or another.

Both Ruby & I also went to the second Sydney show that the DJ can be heard plugging at the end of this concert.
It was held at the State Theatre on the 10th November 1977.
The first of many shows over the years that Lou would play at this Sydney venue.
Seeing that I didn’t tape that show I guess that my cassette recorder had died & I hadn't had enough funds to buy a new one.
I don't have many memories of that show, except for the encore being an extremely long version of I'm Waiting For The Man.
From memory it went for over 20 minutes maybe even heading towards the 30-minute mark & it included being played in different musical styles from rock & roll to jazz, faster, slower, etc etc.

I remember the house lights came on long before the song finished accompanied by exodus of people leaving in droves during it. The sections in front were steadily being emptied so Ruby & myself ran down to the front of stage, we got to the front row, I recall those left around us were diehard fans we had seen at other Sydney Lou shows.
With being so close to Lou I was a bit dubious in case he remembered me from the earlier Sydney concert, but he seemed to be in his own little world, probably didn't even notice that by this time the theatre was slowly emptying. If he did notice, he probably was on a high knowing he was the reason why it was!

To this day this 29th October tape is the only audience recording to have surfaced from the 1977 Australian Tour.
Below are articles about the Sydney 1977 press conference, the SMH review of this 29th October show and a quick note about Lou’s DJ spot at Sydney radio station Double J.

Enjoy, more Lou to come
Waz from Oz

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Sydney Morning Herald 26th October 1977
Back Again : Master Of The Monosyllable
Star sheds little light
By our Showcase Reporter

Lou Reed is the master of the one-word answer, infamous for non-co-operation with the press. The gaunt, 35-year old "rock and roll animal," embodiment of New York decadence (he might grin at the description; he rarely, perhaps never, laughs) held another press conference yesterday.

It was his third in as many years and mot much more enlightening than its predecessors.
but yesterday's performance was a little mellower than before. He seemed to be trying to be slightly nice, even if he could not say why.

They used to call Lou Reed an underground singer during his days with the Andy Warhol guided Velvet Underground group. Then Underground went commercial.
Reed went solo and wrote songs that reflected his lifestyle - about drugs, homosexuality
and transvestites. Pretty soon a market was created for those songs and Reed became something of a star.

For this tour there is just one message : "The show's gonna be loud."
"There's nothing really subtle." he said. "For people into lyrics they will be very hard to decipher."
The show will be at the Hordern Pavilion on Saturday. Finally, we found a topic Reed like talking about. It is the binaural system under which his new album, Street Hassles, has been recorded.

It is a recording technique he says makes stereo and quadraphonic obsolete. "This is like 90 times quad but there's resistance to it because there's a lot of money invested in stereo and quad."

What about his previous statements that he wanted to encourage people to take drugs and brought them for friends - did he just want to shock us?
"Yeah."
To sell tickets to his shows?
"Yeah."
Did it work?
"Mm."
Why would anybody go to the shows?
"They have good taste. They're demonstrating it."
See you next time Lou.

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Sydney Morning Herald 31st October 1977 Concert Review
Lou Reed gets them standing.
Lou Reed Hordern Pavilion 29th October 1977
By Lindsay Scott

Forty minutes into Lou Reed's concert at the Hordern Pavilion on Saturday, I could not see the stage from my fifth-row seat without standing on a chair. Up the front the pseudo punks were excitedly paying homage to a man they think started it all. Others were overdosing on uncompromising rock and roll.

There have been plenty of similar reactions at Sydney rock shows, but usually when the audience senses the end, not halfway through. But Lou Reed and his five-piece guitar based backing group including singer Joanna Kamoran, were delivering the goods.

Reed strode casually on stage with a freshly lit cigarette, dangling defiantly from his mouth, his belly protruding over his jeans more than in 1974 and 1975. His monologue-style of singing is not always in time, or even in tune. Anyone wanting to hear it just like on the records, should stay at home with the stereo. But Reed's vocal style is an effective contrast and complement to the aggression of his music.

An early highlight for the capacity 5,000 crowd, and one that contributed to all that premature chair standing was the 20-minute boogie like I Wanna Be Black. Most of it seemed impromptu, with Reed grinning or nodding at the two other guitarists when he wanted them to take the lead.

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Lou as DJ at Sydney Radio Station 2JJ (With Chris Winter & George Wayne)
25th October 1977
Lou stayed about 3 hours & surprise, surprise behaved himself while playing some of his favourite songs.
The following songs are on the circulating 73 minute tape that is all that seems to have survived:

Garland Jeffries - Wild In The Streets
Lorraine Ellison - Stay With Me Baby
Dobie Grey - Drift Away
Dobie Grey – Eddie’s Song
Rita Jean Bodine - Lickin' Stick
David Bowie - The Bewlay Brothers
Neil Young - Don't Cry No Tears
Van Morrison - Flamingos Fly
Van Morrison - Me And My Music
The Spinners - Me and My Music
The Spinners - You're Throwing A Good Love Away
The Spinners - You're Throwing A Good Love Away (Again)
Otis Redding - Down In The Valley
Van Morrison - Madame George

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