Gig played on 31/06/07

Enough with the "Don't Look Back" idea already. This trend for the great and good to revisit their career peaks (and troughs) has surely reached the point of ridiculousness. What with Brian Wilson relocating the map to "Smile", David Bowie playing "Low" in its entirety and now Roky Erickson rebirthing himself at Meltdown. The very idea of Lou Reed playing "Berlin" is simply too much, or at least it would have been just a few years back. We now await Lennon, Hendrix and Morrison to rise zombie-like from the grave and strike their respective comebacks.

For those unfamiliar with its joys, "Berlin" was Reed's somewhat bleak follow-up to "Transformer". A concept album about a drug-wrecked mother (Caroline) having her kids taken away, it was a boot in the face to anyone expecting tunes in the vain of "Perfect Day" or "Satellite Of Love" or coloured girls singing "Doo-doo-doo-doop-de-do-do". In the words of legendary critic Lester Bangs, "Berlin" was a "gargantuan slab of maggoty rancour that may well be the most depressed album ever made". Rolling Stone considered it a career-ending statement. "Goodbye Lou", concluded their less-than-impressed reviewer.

And yet, here is Reed in Hammersmith, dragging out those opening lines about the city before the Wall, and being five ft ten tall. It's a hair-raising moment for anyone familiar with the album; particularly so in the context of artist Julian Schnabel's harrowing video images. Reed always claimed "Berlin" was theatre, and tonight he proves it. Backed by Bob Ezrin and Hall Willner's sumptuous orchestral arrangements - still evoking pure Weimar cabaret - Yahoo! Music has to conclude that this could be a career pinnacle.

It's not the best thing he's ever done, but revisiting such a brutal song-cycle is certainly one of the bravest. And boy, do things get brutal - especially on renditions of "Oh Jim", "The Bed" ("this is the place where she cut her wrists…") and "The Kids". The latter, incorporating primal screams from a choir of small children, is as unbearably painful as it is on record. Reed's icy vocal and general aura of reptilian detachment plunge the already freezing temperature down another few notches. And while the dappled sunlight that streams into "Sad Song" suggests green shoots of optimism, this is as bruising as concert-going gets - hardly a pleasurable experience per se, but life-affirming all the same.

Certainly as the final chords drift off and the curtain draws, it really does feel like the closing of a chapter. The days when artists made albums like this are probably gone for good, as are such antiquated concepts as subversion, danger and daring. Obviously, if he had truly wanted to test us, Lou could have played "Metal Machine Music", but tonight it really feels like the death of something. We may never hear the likes of this again.

by Adam Webb