Settling on the horizon of LOU REED'S career like an especially monstrous black cloud after the enormously popular 'Transformer' album, 1973's 'Berlin' has maintained its' controversial status ever since, with the influential Rolling Stone magazine suggesting it was perhaps “the most depressing” album ever recorded.
Ironically, the same magazine would go on to re-appraise their position and include 'Berlin' in their 500 Albums of all-time in 2003, but while the album's painful conception (including the oft-repeated story about producer Bob Ezrin obtaining the harrowing sound of children crying on 'The Kids' by telling them their parents had just died) is well-documented, Reed had never previously performed 'Berlin' in its' entirety.
Not until December 2006, anyway, when finally 'Berlin' saw the light of live performance as a complete entity over four nights at (inevitably) a New York City venue of Reed's choice. In this case the cavernous and atmospheric St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn.
As the shiny resulting product suggests, no expense was spared, with original production team Ezrin and Hal Wilner brought on board, plus an all-star sonic cast featuring long-time Reed acolytes Fernando Saunders (bass), Tony 'Thunder' Smith (drums), guitarist Steve Hunter, vocalist extraordinaire Antony Hegarty, plus the necessary strings, horns and Brooklyn Youth Chorus required to hit both the heights and plumb the record's depths.
Because, make no mistake, 'Berlin' remains one of rock'n'roll's most harrowing and unrelenting trips and one whose horrors unfold gradually and spread cancerously towards the story's tragic conclusion. For the uninitiated, its' basic premise revolves around the destructive relationship between an American couple based in (yeah) Wall-era Berlin: a GI called Jim and his partner Caroline. It's a story involving drug abuse, paranoia, shocking domestic violence, extreme unfaithfulness and eventually death and while this reviewer has no doubt it's a remarkable record, it's not one he can listen to in one sitting too often.
Nonetheless, while 'Berlin' may be unremittingly bleak, it's also true that Reed and his cohorts invest it with an intensity that's both memorable and often breathtaking. The brief, scene-setting 'Sad Song' snatch and deceptively lounge-y piano ballad title-track, with its' images of “candlelight and dubonnet on ice” are dummy-throwing affairs before the band enter and the drama builds courtesy of the opulent danger of 'Lady Day': a song Reed made a pretty good fist of during his 'Rock'n'Roll Animal' period.
The ensuing 'Men Of Good Fortune' finds an energised Reed barking “the son waits for his rich father to die...the poor just drink and cry!” and the record's overwhelming desperation beginning to tangibly creep in. As you'd expect, the band play it straight and sombre, though 'Caroline Says #1' and the tension and release of the numbed-out 'How Do You Think It Feels?' provide some welcome rockist relief before the intensity of the album's crucial second half kicks in.
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The coiled'n'hate-fuelled 'Oh Jim' is the first major dip, but the descent into hell begins in earnest with 'Caroline Says #2'. Violins might superfically soothe, but there's no masking the dreadful poignancy as Reed sings “you can hit me all you want to, but I don't love you anymore” during this weeping sore of a song. Mind you, it's a weekend at Butlin's compared to the still-unbearable wailing children of 'The Kids' and the numbing, choir-led apocalypse of 'The Bed' where Caroline finally slides the razor over her wrist. Weirdly enough, the closing 'Sad Song' – with its' gently repetitive strings and valedictory woodwind – seems almost like a re-birth after the tumultuous sadness which precedes it.
I say 'closing', but there are still the three encores. A moving 'Candy Says', featuring a dislocated, but effective duet between Reed and Antony Johnson is a good start, but the S&M, asphyxiation and Clockwork Orange'-style ultra-violence inherent in the lyrics (“paralysed by hatred and a piss-ugly soul”) of the ensuing 'Rock Minuet' are as forbidding as anything from 'Berlin' itself. Thankfully, there's still 'Sweet Jane' in reserve and, even though it's a bit lacklustre it's still a breath of fresh air after the unrelenting 75 minutes you encounter before you arrive there.
Hindsight reminds us that 'Berlin' is still not quite Lou Reed's greatest act of commercial suicide ('Metal Machine Music' was a greater fuck off, all things considered) but it WAS worth hanging around for the three decades for him to stage. Whether or not it really is the most depressing album ever made is an issue for another forum entirely, but suffice it to say it remains one of the most resonant moments rendered when the sun was blotted out behind rock'n'roll's clouds and it carries every bit as much weight live.
(http://www.loureed.com)
(http://www.berlinthefilm.com )
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