Fuck Lou Reed. After seeing Ozzy I was sympathetic but disapointed. After David Allen Coe, I was confused and a bit disalusioned. But after seeing Lou Reed live, I was fucking pissed off. Before tearing into this, and yes I realize this blog is getting long as fuck (feel free to take a milk and cookie break), I'll give a little back information. Lou Reed on all accounts is considered by many to be a rock icon. He hasn't exactly sold a shit ton of albums, but music critics love him to death both as the lead singer of The Velvet Underground, as for being a solo artist. As a music lover and concert goer, I am very resetive to legends, even if I'm not that familiar with their actual body of work. When I saw that Lou Reed was slated to be at Lollapalooza in 2009, it was pretty much a done deal that I was going to go see him; his name was just to prolific to pass up. I knew a few Velvet Underground songs, their self-titled third album is fucking awesome, and decided my brother's copy of The Best of Lou Reed was a good enough study guide for the concert. I listened to the album five or six times of a month period, and really enjoyed it; further cementing my commitment to see Reed's performance at Lollapalooza. For anyone that's never been to Lollapalooza, it's a fucking amazing time, but unfortunatley bands overlapp so it's pretty impossible to see every good band there (unless you're a moron and run from stage to stage never seeing a full set). I went with my youngest brother that year (technically my cousin went too, but we wont talk about him), and we had our three days planned out to the T. The only thing we didnt agree on was Sunday night, so after watching Dan Auerbach's set we went our seperate ways. He traveled to the other side of the park to watch Snoop Dogg and get a great spot upfront for The Killers (completely ignoring Silversun Pickups), while I bedded with the goal of seeing Jane's Addiction. My plan was simple: I'd relax on the grass watching Lou Reed's set, mozzy on over to the very nearby Playstation Stage to see Band of Horses, and than leave around halway through their set to secure a good spot to rock out full force to Jane's Addiction. Sounds like a pretty musically wonderful evening right? Well I hadn't factored in Lou Reed being a piece of shit.
Lollapalooza is a festival, there are a lot of bands playing each day on each stage and in order to keep the activities running smoothly a schedule needs to be adheard to. There are four main stages at Lollapalooza (as wells as a bunch of smaller ones) two at each end of the park. I was at the north end of the park by the Budweiser and Playstation stages, which are maybe two football fields apart. To keep the music running endlessly all day long, the close procimitey stages switch alternate; so one stage will have a band playing while the other is setting up and vise versa. Each band gets to play for one hour. As effective and easy as that sounds to run a well maned concert, Lou Reed decided to shit on everyones parade. Following Dan Auerbach's performance on the Playstation Stage, I walked over to the Budweiser Stage and found a good spot on the grass where I could sit back comfortably and still see the stage, I felt no need to fight for the front I was content to take it easy and rest up for the night's big finale. My brother was still with me at this point, having elected to catch the first couple songs of Lou's setlist. We waited, and waited, and waited, and after ten minutes he bailed to see Snoop Dogg (wise choice; crazy that both him and Lou are on the new Gorillaz album). For the first time in two days, the north end of Grant Park was silent as one stage setup for Band of Horses while the other waited or Lou Reed to fucking join the party. Around ten more minutes would pass before the former Velvet Underground frontman showed his face. With no apolagies or excusess, Lou took the mic and his band launched into "Sweet Jane", a wonderful song and a crowd favorite.
It looked as though things might be ok. Reed had cheated the crowd out of nearly half his hour set, but he and the band sounded fantastic, and it appeared they were going to play some of his most famous songs. I relaxed sang along, and settled in to watch a legend do this thing. Unfortunately I began to notice disturbing actions taking place onstage and returned to my feet to a fuller view of what was happening. I hadn't noticed them initially, but by the second song it was blatanly clear Lou Reed had two tele promtors on either side of him. Pretty sad there Lou, you can't memorize the lyrics to songs you've been performing regularly since the 1970's? Songs you fucking wrote for Christ sake. Some people might be willing to give a performer a pass on things like this but I'm fucking not, would it be acceptable for the guitar or drum player to not have memorized their parts? I dont think so, and it's not like he was just glancing at the thing either, unless it was the chorus he needed that thing like Mr. Lebowski needed his fucking wheel chair (sorry Walter). I might not have even noticed the fucking electronic cheat sheets, if Lou hadn't summed stage hands to run out and adjust them to his desired angle at least three times. Come on man, I thought you were suppose to be fucking cool, this is a fucking rock festival not the god dam French Opera; deal with shit. But he couldn't, and I feel very sorry for the poor bastards that were working the stage during Lou's set because he treated them like dirt (I'm fairly certain that most bands bring their own crew to set up their shit, so working for Lou Reed obviously sucks big monkey balls). Anyone unfortunate enough to attempt to correct Lou's teleprompter mishap (it's fucking half a meter to low you fucking morons) was met with rolled eyes, sour faces, angry hand gestures, and an overall body language message of "don't look at me you piece of shit, just set it up exactly how I like it."
So are we done, is this my Lou Reed complain? Nope, sorry bra there was definately more. So besides making the stage hands, roadies, adjust his telepromtor several times, Lou also thought they did a piss poor job tuning the instruments on stage. Randomly, again and again throughout the set, Lou would suddenly deem his guitar as not sounding adequate and stop playing. The majority of the time this happened in the middle of a song, you'd think he'd notice this right away. At first he would look stop playing and look over the end of the stage for a roadie to correct the mistake Lou though existed. He sounded just fine to me, though I certainly do not possess the most perfectly trained guitar tuning ears. I was actually surprised at how tight and good, Lou's band sounded. Even his vocals were top notch, but he kept thinking things were going aerie with his guitar. At a few changes, he stopped even looking over to the roadies, he'd simply stop playing and stand there staring off into space until a stage-hand noticed and darted onstage. Once after having his guitar changed, he immediately hated the new one after strumming no more than two notes; so he dropped his arms again forcing another stage and to run out another guitar. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me. It's common for an artist to switch guitars after a song or two, they may need a guitar tuned in a different for the next song, or once in a while a string might break and a stage-hand will run a fresh out to them quick, but this was fucking beyond anything that should happen at a show and I don't think it was the stage crew's fault. Lou even took it up a notch later in the concert. Twice I saw him walk over to his other guitar or bass player and whisper in their ear for a second. Immediately after Lou was done talking, they too dropped their instruments and looked to the side of the stage, wanting new instruments. And it's not like they made any indication that they themselves though their instruments sounded off key, no they only did so because their in the fucking Lou Reed band and Lou Reed said so.
At this point I was getting more and more annoyed by the diva-ness of Mr. Reed, something I don't appreciate seeing at concerts at all (Aretha Franklin is a big fat bitch by the way). But I was still stationary at this point, carefully watching Lou's every move; very much removed from the music as good as it was. Than at the end Lou's sixth song, "Paranoia Key of E", the band lost any chance of me leaving happy. They launched into some fucking noise jam. I say noise cause that's exactly what it was, Lou and his DJ sending loud cracking, pulsing, shit sounds into the audience. To call it industrial sounds would be a disservice to groups like NIN and Combichrist, no this was horrid static. It sounded like the kind of shit that must be off Lou's infamous 1975 album Metal Machine Music; many consider it the worst record ever made, and it is considered a challenge among rock journalist to get through he entire thing (there's a couple humorous reviews from allmusic and Rollingstone. Sadly Lou and his band have taken to reviving this piece of shit in recent years, performing free form inspirations from the album, and even plan to release a remastered version possibly next year. The well spread out Lolla goers still at Lou's stage, began to thin out further at this point; I personally began pacing the grounds shocked the machine white noise persisted for ten or so minutes. Than I glanced at my watch and guess what, while the white noise blared on, it was 7:30; Lou's set was officially over. Band of Horses, a really great band, were suppose to be starting their set now at the nearby Playstation Stage, but Lou played on. 
After the horrid Metal Machine Music tribute mercifully came to a close, Lou launched into "Waiting for the Man". Don't get me wrong, it's a good song, and maybe Lou thought he would make up for being late, but while he refused to leave the Budweiser Stage, Band of Horses were forced to patiently wait on the side of their stage for the supposed legend to finish. The fans in front of Playstation Stage however were not as patient as the band they came to see and launched into a "Fuck Lou Reed" chant; very fitting. It's doubtful Lou could actually hear it from that distance, but their hearts were surely in the right place. Following "Waiting for the Man", Lou's band looked very confused, several of them wandering towards the edge of the stage obviously being told by stage-hands and organizers to get the fuck off the stage, but Lou looked back at them and sheepishly said "Wild Side", promptly the band to uncomfortable launch into Lou's most famous solo song. Between the two stages a wandering haze of confusion took over the Lolla goers, some where happily singing along to "Walk on the Wild Side", others were booing and shouting wanting their Band of Horses to start, and still others were just standing between two stages wishing an old man would wrap it up. Finally the song did end, Lou gave a wave and headed off stage while Band of Horses finally took theirs.
Fuck You Lou Reed. A hard nosed fan could have ignored or wrote off all my earlier complaints (maybe not the being late), but playing 15 minutes past your allotted time at a tightly scheduled event like Lollapalooza is inexcusable. You unfairly sidelined one band that was ready to go, and robbed roadies the time they need to set up for the night's headliner, Jane's Addiction. Now Band of Horses were forced to either cut their set 15 minutes short, or also run over. In the end, encouraged by their fans, the band did play their one hour time slot, going over the schedule 15 minutes. This pushed Jane's Addiction to take the stage 10 minutes late, and they launched into their set while Band of Horses were wrapping things up (there should not be overlap like this at Lolla, you could hear Band of Horses through Jane's first song). You fucked up Reed. That night you were a fucking entertainer, paid to put on particular time slotted performance. Rather than suck it up, deal with it, or get the fucking job done, you instead elected to do things your own way, disrespecting the fans, the organizers, the other entertainers, the stage crew, and your own fucking band. I have never been so angered, or offended by an entertainer, especially one thought so highly of in many music circles. Would I go Again? Fuck no. I've heard that Lou pulls this kind of shit at his own concerts as well, a real shame. I will never pay to see Lou Reed live, so unless he just happens to be at some festival I attend, though I strongly doubt I'll venture over to see him anyway, I highly doubt our paths will pass again.
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