Lou Reed is The Coolest Old Man – He Even Does Karaoke!
Lou Reed appears to read his own lyrics from a suspicious-looking box, nonetheless plays crowd-pleasing set for hip parents, oldies, and music nerds
Lou Reed may wear a V-neck and boast a DJ (and his keyboardist wears Threadless shirts!), but his Lollapalooza set at the Budweiser stage on Sunday largely remained a draw for attendees born before 1980, a statistic undoubtedly enhanced by Reed’s crossbooking with Deerhunter and Snoop Dogg. The former Velvet Underground member performed a memorable set which satisfied both the older members of the audience and the younger members – the latter of whom may be too young to remember the 1987 death of Reed’s mentor Andy Warhol, but who are smart enough to at least feel obligated to see the legendary songwriter’s set. (I imagine this situation in tandem with Iggy Pop and The Stooges’ appearance in 2007, at which most young people around me were just interested in seeing the crazy, crinkly man do something weird.)
Fifteen minutes late, Reed opened with the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane”, which is a great song with which to start a warm summer night. But fifteen minutes? Really?? Santigold started fifteen minutes late, but she currently has a one-album repertoire. Same with Cage the Elephant. Lou Reed has about twenty albums (not counting, um, 2007’s Hudson River Wind Meditations) and, I don’t know, a couple decades of experience. Anyway, he went on to play “Senselessly Cruel” and “Dirty Blvd.”, the latter of which is really an homage to New York City, but Reed minded his manners and gave a shoutout to Chicago at the end.
Somewhere in the middle of “Dirty Blvd.”, however, a tech person ran onstage to adjust some sort of stand holding up a box, containing what was probably a screen for Reed to look at. That’s right, LOOK AT. As in, reading. It is not confirmed, but I suspect that Lou Reed was reading the lyrics, or possibly chords (really not much better) to his songs. Yes, Reed has been around for a while, and he has quite possibly lost some things along the way, but even Iggy Pop can remember the words to “I Wanna Be Your Dog”.
“Paranoia Key of E” morphed into an odd sort of noise jam session, ranging from the grungy-looking DJ going crazy at the laptops (yep – there were two; their purpose, however, remains unclear); the unkempt, unsmiling bass player looking as if his dog just died while plucking the upright; and the ponytailed electric saxophonist bringing out all the bells and whistles, with super-heavy distortion. The really high teenagers in front of me appeared to enjoy this part, but the middle-aged couple from Naperville (probably) looked confused and a little stunned. Seriously, if I had wanted to hear ten minutes of musical cacophony, I would have seen No Age.
After “I’m Waiting For The Man” (another Velvet Underground song) – which was preceded by an awkwardly long lead-in – Reed and his band closed with “Walk On The Wild Side” (the only song played from Transformer), notably omitting the adjectival “colored” when describing the girls who sing doo, de-doo, de-doo. Also notable is his screwing over Band of Horses by going over the 6:30-7:30 time slot by fifteen minutes. Band of Horses would go on to force headliners Jane’s Addiction (who I would only see, by the way, to hear “Superhero”, since I’m obsessed with Entourage) to wait ten minutes to start their closing set. Guess who Perry’s not inviting back next year?
This one was a top hit for over a week after the festival ended. It stirred up some controversy in the comments section.