Gig of the Year? John Cale

I moved to Cambridge from London two and a half years ago. The month we moved we had a daughter and it was decided that I would be the one staying at home and looking after her.

So I was in a new town where other than my family I didn't know anybody and I was pretty much stuck in most of the time with a small kid. Obviously being stuck in with a small kid has it's rewards and I liked the arrangement but I knew that I needed some way of getting out the house now and again- a kind of "my time" sort of deal.

So I went to lots of gigs. The fact I didn't know anyone in Cambridge was ok-I don't mind going on my own-and in some ways I prefer it (I'm the same with the cinema). My criteria for choosing who to see, whilst not totally profligate, was fairly broad- obviously I would go and see bands I liked- but was happy to pay and go and see people I thought I might like- who were associated with stuff I like. There are plenty of artists that fall into that category and John Cale is one of them so I went to see him at the Junction in January.


So I turned up not knowing any of his material (other than what he had done with the Velvet Underground) - and not really knowing what to expect. He opened with an intense, compelling electronic re-working of Heartbreak Hotel and I'm not sure why-but it reminded me of Tom Waits. And that was the pattern of the gig- almost every song reminded me of someone else- some songs reminded me of Leonard Cohen, others of Bob Dylan. One song (Dirty ass Rock N' Roll) I thought could have been a Patti Smith song sung by a Welsh bloke.

Of course this was entirely a reflection of me not knowing his material- and I suppose with the songs being unfamiliar I was looking for markers to put it into some sort of context. Anyway-the fact it reminded me of other stuff did not mean that I did not like the songs and the next day I got a couple of Cale's LPs , Black Acetate and the really quite brilliant Paris 1919.

And guess what?

The songs in no way reminded me of Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen or anyone else.

Here he is singing Paris 1919



So could it be my gig of the year? Well probably not- I'm going to give a GOTY rating of 5/10.
However what I like about gigs like this is that it is about listening to new stuff (at least to me) and as such it runs counter to what are the increasingly conservative instincts of a 40 year old man- like my bizarre current obsession with U2 - a band to whom I was totally indifferent in the eighties (...and which is part of a decidedly odd mid-life crisis)