John Cale at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (6 February ’23)

My first gig of the year was a trip to the Phil to see John Cale, in a show that had been rearranged at least once, meaning that I was able to make it, having had to pass when tickets originally went on sale due to a clash with something else.

Liverpool Philharmonic Hall

The support act

I got to the venue with plenty of time to settle in my seat before the support act, South African singer Manu Grace.

My ticket

She was on her own, playing electronics and usually either a guitar or bass.

Her Bandcamp page says, “Although hesitant to commit to a genre, her music can most accurately be described as Sensitive Pop — unguarded and groovy; appealing to both heart and feet alike.”

I have to say, it was hard to pin her music down to a clear description.

She kicked off with the first two tracks from her second ep No Room For Error from 2020, the title cut and then the cleverly-named Waiting For A Change (Waiting, For A Change).

Manu Grace

Next up was You’re In Rome, yet another song from that ep, as I started to notice hints of the likes of London Grammar and Beth Orton in her sound.

After Over The Stove came probably my favourite song, Rudely Conspicuous from her first ep, June from 2019. It was a little circular in its sound, with a nice groove to it.

She ended with the first song she ever released (However), followed by the moody atmospherics of How Can I Apologise?, yet another number from No Room For Error.

I popped over the road during the interval, as is my usual wont, for a pint of Fuller’s London Pride in the Phil pub, my drink of choice when I used to live down south. Service and supping were both efficient, meaning I was back in my seat with plenty of time before the main event.

My history with the headliner

Unsurprisingly, I first got into Cale via The Velvet Underground, two of whose albums made it into my Top 25 of all time.

My interval pint

I also quickly got attuned to some of his excellent production work with the likes of The Stooges, The Modern Lovers and Patti Smith, then Squeeze and (much later) Happy Mondays.

The Welshman also features on a myriad of other albums in my collection as a musician, such as the second albums of both Earth Opera and Nick Drake, and other works by The Replacements, Super Furry Animals and Manic Street Preachers.

I picked up 1974’s fourth solo album Fear (still very much his finest hour) and 1975’s follow-up Slow Dazzle on CD while a student, replacing these with the two-disc The Island Years that also includes Helen Of Troy (again from 1975) for £12.99 from Selectadisc in Soho in June 2001, picking up Chester by Josh Rouse + Kurt Wagner in the same purchase.

I bought 1989’s Words For The Dying from Hi Tension Records in Romford in June 1990 (getting Eno’s Before And After Science at the same time), also acquiring Songs For Drella (his tribute to Andy Warhol in tandem with Lou Reed) in the same month from CD in Sheffield, both for £7.99.

I’m sure I saw Reed and Cale performing that album somewhere in London shortly after its release, but I have never been able to track down a date or venue – I think it would have been somewhere like the Royal Festival Hall or Barbican.

There was another collaboration in 1990, this time with Brian Eno, and I got the Wrong Way Up album from Reckless Records in Soho for the odd sum of £8.28 in March 1991 (also returning home with albums by The Perfect Disaster, Peter Astor, The KLF and The Mekons), and a US CD single of One Word two months later for £3.99 from CD (also snapping up The Best Of The Waitresses and some other CD singles).

I made a tape of my CD copy of the live June 1, 1974 by John Cale – Eno – Nico And The Soporifics in February 1991, which includes Cale’s Heartbreak Hotel. This tape also features two Hugo Largo albums. As with pretty much every other CD I have sold over the years, I wish I’d kept hold of it.

I got to see Reed and Cale on stage again in June 1993, when The Velvet Underground briefly reformed. I went with my best mate Kris to see them at The Forum in Kentish Town, for the bargain price of £19.50, with Luna in support.

Later that year, I bought Cale’s Sabotage/Live from Key Mail Order for £13.98 in October, and then 1973’s Paris 1919 from Minus Zero in Ladbroke Grove for £12 in November (also buying the first album by The Zombies and a two-fer of the first two LPs by The Standells at the same time).

There was still time that year for another Cale album from Minus Zero, as I bought Music For A New Society from 1982 for £12 in December, acquiring Psycho-Sonic by The Sonics at the same time.

I got to see John Cale for the only previous time solo in February 2001, with Kris at Queen Elizabeth Hall. For the sake of completeness, I should mention that I have also seen his former bandmates Lou Reed twice and Moe Tucker once live.

I added 1970’s Vintage Violence to my collection in June 2001, as part of a 3-for-£20 deal from HMV in Richmond, along with Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly and an unknown album I no longer own.

I got that year’s 5 Tracks ep from Amazon for £3.83 in July 2003, on the same order as a combo of When You’re Hot, You’re Hot and Ko-Ko-Joe by Jerry Reed. Four months later, I bought HoboSapiens shortly after its release for £8.99 from cdwow.

It was nearly two decades before I added to my Cale collection, snapping up a copy of Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood from 2012 for just £4 from Reckless Records on a trip to the big smoke with work last April, also returning home with second-hand copies of Television’s The Blow-Up and albums by Lou Reed and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.

Finally, I got the brand new Mercy from Amazon for £11.75 last month, to prepare for this show. After only a couple of listens apiece, I’d say I much prefer Nookie Wood over Mercy.

Cale is now eighty years old, and is actually three months older than Paul McCartney (whom I last saw in December 2018), but a year younger than Bob Dylan (last seen in May 2017) and two younger than Dionne Warwick (I’ve only seen her the once, last June). Willie Nelson must surely be the oldest currently active ‘pop star’ though at the age of 89.

The main event

John Cale and band

The set-list was a real mix of songs from across his career, including five songs from the current album, but sadly nothing off the preceding record.

Even more disappointing was the lack of anything off 1974’s Fear, far and away my favourite of his albums, though he had played three songs from it when I saw him in 2001, despite venturing back before that for one song from 1973’s Paris 1919 in Liverpool.

Cale said hello to the city before beginning proceedings with a 2007 single Jumbo In Tha Modernworld. I’d happened to give this song a quick listen online before the show as I’d discovered he often opened gigs with it, and it was one of the highlights of the evening.

John Cale

He barely spoke another word through the evening, letting his music do the talking, as well as an often apt selection of footage on a large screen behind him, for instance with the titular German songstress in the subsequent Moonstruck (Nico’s Song).

Next came a song I’d completely forgotten he wrote, the funky and lengthy Rosegarden Funeral Of Sores that successfully avoided much of a tune.

There is a version by Cale on an extended CD of Sabotage/Live (but not my copy, sadly). However, I know it best from the Bauhaus cover, originally on the B-side of their version of T. Rex’s Telegram Sam, but now to be found on the In The Flat Field CD.

After the title track came another song from the current LP, Night Crawling, which was backed by a 70’s-retro style cartoon showing Cale (whom I at first mistook for Mick Jagger) and David Bowie roaming through the New York nightlife.

Another song I’d briefly listened to in advance was next in the form of Pretty People, a song off a bonus 7” with some vinyl copies of Mercy.

John Cale (playing guitar) and band

This was followed by the no wave/Swans-y Wasteland from 2005’s Black Acetate, one of the seven of his seventeen solo studio albums I have never heard.

He only played one of what could be called his ‘classic’ numbers, Guts from Slow Dazzle, which led him to speak properly for the first time, wryly just introducing it by stating “this song’s in B flat.”

The ‘hit’-free nature of his set can be shown in there only being two songs played that were included on 1999’s Close Watch: An Introduction To John Cale compilation, with Guts being the only one off the double comp Seducing Down The Door: A Collection 1970−1990 from five years earlier.

Joey Maramba

After another track off the current album, he played the only song I’d seen him also do back in 2001, Cable Hogue from Helen Of Troy, which featured Cale on guitar for the only time in the evening, while Dustin Boyer ended the song with a great atonal guitar solo.

For Half Past France from Paris 1919, bassist Joey Maramba played his instrument with a violin bow, while I felt I could hear the influence of the likes of Stockhausen on this song.

I should also give a shout out to the third member of Cale’s backing band, the very solid Alex Thomas on drums.

The very final song of the evening was an extended version of Villa Albani from 1984’s Caribbean Sunset, yet another song I’d only given a brief pre-gig listen to as it’s from a corner of his career I’m unfamiliar with.

My t-shirt

After introducing the band, Cale and co. headed off, sadly ignoring the steady bout of applause aimed at bringing them back for an encore.

It had been a real curate’s egg of a performance, providing an occasionally challenging but still very worthwhile evening.

Tonight’s t-shirt

Unsurprisingly, I went for my green Velvets t-shirt for this evening.

I think I spotted a couple of other band tees in evidence, but I wasn’t close or nosy enough to be able to properly identify them.

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Playlist

Here is much of the music from the night on Spotify: