7. The Velvet Underground1969: The Velvet Underground Live
I could have picked their first album or their third or fourth, as they’re all such great statements, but this is the first one I owned because again, in 1979, you couldn’t buy the other ones; you couldn’t find them where I was. This was the only choice, or Rock n Roll Animal. I got White Light/White Heat as an English import a few years later. This is probably my favourite live album ever, the best thing about is it’s just really dead sounding; maybe there was nobody there. Some of it is recorded on a Sunday night in Dallas because you can hear Lou talking about a football game which they went to watch that day. This album is definitely better than the live album they did in 1994 and they’re missing Doug Yule, which is probably what’s so great about ’69: Live; he’s responsible for the backing vocal harmonies.
This record contains fantastic live versions of ‘Sweet Jane’ with the bridge in it which I think was the first time people heard that, and it’s just a great recording, and I like them more post-John Cale. I saw VU when they reformed in 1994 and we did the European tour opening for them. It was so weird getting that phone call; I just thought my manager was pulling my leg.
