Photo: Press
The Velvet Underground & Nico turns 50 next year and Velvet Underground founding member John Cale has announced that he’ll be playing the album in full in New York, and in Liverpool Docklands to honour this revolutionary masterpiece.
The performances follow on from an anniversary celebration at the Philharmonie de Paris in Paris earlier this year where Cale invited The Libertines, Animal Colletive and Mark Lanegan to perform with him.
The Welshman hand–picked Liverpool because its the city he sailed from where he left the UK. Guest performers at the next shows promise to be just as high profile.
The next shows mark the penultimate and final time Cale, who conceived much of the album's sound and stressed its experimental qualities, will play this album in full.
Cale’s visionary sound was unknown to mainstream audiences and it proved a massive turning point. Especially promiment is the drone of his viola informed by the avant garde minimalists with whom he’d studied before joining the band – an asset that turned one record label off from signing the album at the time.
But in contrasst to its initial commercial failure, it became and remains probably the most important rock album of all time. It's shaped the music of everyone from Iggy Pop and David Bowie, to The Strokes, and Echo and the Bunnymen.
Of the upcoming performances, Cale says in the press release: “I'm often reluctant to spend too much time on things past - then, a time marker shows up - The Velvet Underground & Nico turns fifty! As so many bands can attest to, it is the fulfillment of the ultimate dream to record your first album. We were an unfriendly brand, dabbling in a world of challenging lyrics and weird sonics that didn't fit into anyone's playlist at the time. Remaining ferociously true to our viewpoints, Lou and I never doubted for a moment we could create something to give a voice to things not regularly explored in rock music at the time. That bizarre combination of four distinctly disparate musicians and a reluctant beauty queen perfectly summed up what it meant to be The Velvet Underground.”
This show will be staged will take place outdoors facing out to the Atlantic ocean and New York City in the heart of Liverpool’s historic docklands. An incredible post-industrial façade it is the ideal setting for the performance of a record forged in Warhol’s arthouse crucible of 1960’s New York.
Cale left The Velvet Underground in in 1968 due to differences with Lou Reed. But his time in the band was when The Velvet Underground were at the height of their powers. The 11 tracks are truly sublime and the last ever opportunity to see John Cale peform it in full is an opportunity not to be missed.
Tickets go Tickets on sale at 9am on Friday 28th October
