Lou Reed – Berlin: Live at St. Ann's Warehouse and Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Is it the Sea?

Ahh, the live album. A strange beast at the best of times. This month two cult legends, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Lou Reed both release new live efforts. But do they really bring anything to the artists output? For Will Oldham, it presents an opportunity to rework material from his back catalog with yet another new band (this time Alex Neilson and Harem Scarem), while Reed gets all ‘Don’t Look Back’ for a run through of his 1973 Masterpeice ‘Berlin’. Unable to tour it at the time of release, Reed finally assembled a 30 piece band and 10 person choir in 2006 to perform the album live for the first time.Will Oldham, or Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy is a tinkerer. Be it radical reworkings or R and B hits (R. Kelly has been reworked by Oldham on several occasions), or country re-toolings of his own material as on 2004’s Bonnie Prince Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music Oldham is unafraid to challenge preset conceptions of song. ‘Is it the Sea?’ sees Oldham joining forces with Scottish Folk sextet Harem Scarem and Alex Neilson. Providing harmony and Harmoniums, they add angelic assistance to ‘Love Comes To Me’. Their influence is not wholly positive however, overcrowding Oldham on the brooding ‘Wolf Among Wolves’ and stripping it of much of it’s power. Oldham also contrives to strip the power from Superwolf’s ‘My Home is the Sea’, covering it in unnecessary flute flourishes and droning strings. However, it is on the traditional ‘Molly Bawn’ that the band really come on to their own, with it’s rushing, powerful climax, with its swirling fiddles coming on like Fairport Convention at their most rawkus (this is a good thing). While ‘Is it the Sea?’ covers a good deal of Oldham’s career, from Arise, Therefore to ‘New Partner’ from the Strange Form Of Life EP, the majority of the material is drawn from the Master and Everyone and The Letting Go. In part, this is it’s problem, as much material has been released in two versions already and not enough is done here to make a significant impact on the songs. This is not to say that it is a poor record, merely an inessential one in terms of Oldham’s prolific output.As for Reed, 33 years after the critical panning Berlin received on it’s initial release, this live show and album stick a proverbial two fingers up at all the naysayers. With vocal assistance from the wonderful Sharon Jones, Reed runs through his tales of spousal abuse, infidelity and death with relish. The album doesn’t feel like a standard gig, but more of an event or a happening, Reed and his music full of theatre, be it the choir building or the dueling guitars of “Men of Good Fortune”. “How Do You Think It Feels” and “Sad Song” are as big and brash and magnificent as on record, and it is only really “Oh Jim”, spread out to a mammoth 8 minutes that suffers here. The theatricality receives another boost from a cameo appearance by Antony during the encore of ‘Candy Says’. Hegarty’s fragile vocal’s suite the song perfectly. The only regret is that Reed shares verses with him, his now grizzled voice clashing rather than complementing the delicacy of Hegarty’s delivery. The album closes with an anticlimactic watered down run through Sweet Jane that seems out of place given the huge sounds of what has gone before. While the show is undoubtedly a success, and ‘Candy Says’ is a welcome addition, the problem is that the album serves as a document for the show or a curiosity. Given the choice between listening to the recorded version or Berlin live I know which one I will choose in years to come.Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy- Is it the Sea? 68% Lou Reed- Berlin Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse 75%