JOHN CALE LIVE: REVIEW
- Bernard Zuel
- Jul 15
- 2 min read
JOHN CALE
City Recital Hall, Sydney, July 10
CUDDLY UNCLE JACK? Well, nearly.
A friend who’s seen John Cale quite a few times talks about how some shows could be buoyant, and some chilly, alienating and almost aggressively seeking to disturb you – which to be fair is kinda what we want from this 83-year-old with a fine mop of white hair, a soul patch and no interest in cardigans.
While not exactly avuncular – the triggered drum loop, repetitive piano and almost Germanic sternness of Out Your Window, paired late-show with the tense Company Commander’s slow build to nagging near dissonance, had a windchill factor comparable to the night outside – this version of Cale, from his cheery wave as he entered, to the fan service of I’m Waiting For The Man in the encore more than 90 minutes later, was definitely at the next door neighbour happy to set another place for you level of friendliness.
Set before a full length screen whose vivid imagery veered between precise and distorted all night, there was something quite alluring in Setting Fires, a song for a possible Western, evoking long skies and occidental meeting oriental over cards, pigs and gold, while Chums Of Dumpty, a rolling, almost danceable, slightly East Asian yet very New York piece of pop gave the band of drummer Alex Thomas, bassist Joey Maramba and guitarist Dustin Boyer room to be playful.
And there was a noticeable lift in the audience when Cale offered up Mr Wilson, an abrasive but not without its sweetness, or humour, alterna-rock song that reminded us and the titular Brian W, that “Wales is not like Californ-i-a/In any way”.
While the set list sought representation from across his career, including a spectral take on Nico’s Frozen Warnings, and the aforementioned almost jaunty, messing around with it, I’m Waiting For The Man, there were some notable gaps. Another friend of mine bemoaned the absence of any of his “pop bangers” from albums like Paris 1919, and there was a general recognition we were getting a show a step or two back from the edge of Cale world.
But no one was going to complain about the deconstructed slab of Elvis put back together in a psychedelic haze that was Heartbreak Hotel (electric bass bowed, guitar scratching, keyboards rolling one way, drums rolling the other), the art rock stripped to the bones of Shark Shark (with Cale on guitar) and Captain Hook’s mid-century modernist take on the sea shanty (enhanced by the inclusion of local support, loop-wielding violinist Xani Kolac, who was given about ten minutes notice of the call-up but sparred brilliantly with Boyer).
So, maybe not cuddly, but definitely huggable.
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A version of this review was first published in The Sydney Morning Herald
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