Disastrous Lou Reed / Laurie Anderson / John Zorn set at the Montreal Jazz Festival

"Go f... yourself".

Those were the only words coming from the three musicians, in response to the noisy and disapproving crowd, at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at la Place des Arts last Friday. It was Zorn, actually, uttering those three words. Reed looked fragile and depressed, Anderson looked shocked. And after less than 75 minutes, the crowd and the musician decided to part.

Too bad. I, for one, was actually enjoying the noise-post-rock-free-jazz impros. But I like Zorn more than Reed, so maybe I was the targeted audience. I was told that it was a bit like Metal Machine Music.

If you read French, you can read my report here...

http://fredhammersmith.blogspot.com/2010/07/collision-frontale-entre-lou-reed-et.html

 

So they performed something sorta like Metal Machine Music and the crowd actually stayed for 75 minutes? Their patience impresses me.

 

Should have sold more tickets to dogs. Reports are they were very happy.

 

Fred's report says that part of the crowd (presumably Lou Reed fans) booed after just 12 minutes. Maybe Zorn was right.

 

And they were expecting what, exactly, from such a line-up? Ninety minutes of Lou's greatest hits?

 

No, I was there. The dogs booed.

 

The short excerpt on YT sounds kinda mesmerizing. A brief review from Spinner.

 

The clip sounds interesting ,
i'd like to hear/see the whole set , rude that some booed

 

I dunno. I liked it!

 

Sounded pretty interesting to me. Not sure what all the fuss is about, especially given the three musicians involved.

 

Actually,"Go F.... yourself" sounds kind of rude. Given the lineup,and the music in the excerpt,hard to figure how the audience got so out of hand as to boo.Even by the standards of 40 years ago,this seems tame.

 

Clip from last year

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhaUDl4jbS0

 

Well, the clip from Mtl is from the most peaceful moment of the concert.
Also, it would be interesting to know which proportion of the audience booed. 15%?
Certainly not the majority.
But they were as noisy as Lou!

 

This actually sounds like the Lou Reed/Laurie Anderson/Steve Hunter concert I saw last year, except the crowd was polite. It was a benefit for the local meditation center, and the music was mostly experimental in nature. I only recognized one song, Pale Blue Eyes, in the whole set, which lasted slightly over an hour.

 

I've heard the set. Sounds pretty good. Drone stuff from Lou, jazzy and not unmelodic horn from Zorn, delicate picking from Laurie. Definitely a case of misplaced audience expectations, though it was a jazz festival. Certainly in the pocket for any fan of Ornette Coleman, if not necessarily as good.

 

I saw Lou dozens of times during the seventies and the shows went from spectacular to ?????. One show was him standing in front of a wall of TV's with the horizontal and vertical controls scrambled, no guitar instead a sax as lead instrument. This was Lou with Anderson and Zorn, what were they expecting? It sounded better than MMM.

 

I wonder if it was like that STONE concert they performed a few years ago. They sell a CD of the performance. It's pretty 'noisey'. Not for 'rock' fans!

 

For the record, and with all due respect, this is not what I recall John saying. A man close to me shouted between the second and third song "play some music." After a brief and awkward silence, John Zorn replied "if you don't think this is music, then get the f*** out of here." I was upfront and could hear him very well.

I find that insulting the artists, besides being completely unnecessary, demonstrates lack of respect to both the artists and those who enjoy the show. Everybody is entitled to their taste in music, and can leave early if they don't enjoy themselves. I read (but have not verified) that the jazz festival refunded the tickets of unsatisfied patrons.

And by the way, I too enjoyed the show.

 

Yeah. John Cale would surely approve!

 

From the initial description, I didn't think I would enjoy the clip. But I found it kinda moving.
And I thought it was funny in your report how you thought at first (or maybe hoped) the audience wasn't booing but chanting "Louuuu...".

 

you are right about the f word.
in a way, it was more polite!

 

I was saying Lou-urns.

 

The audience was rather underwhelmed with Reed's Australian show, too.

 

Sounds real interesting—more interesting, frankly, than MMM.

Must have been the crowd came in with expectations that could not possibly be fulfilled.

 

That sounds great! I don't see what the problem was. I would have loved to have been there.