John Cale Hobart PW1 23 January 2010

The final installment of an amazing 8 days

John Cale Hobart PW1 23 January 2010
1. Captain Hook
2. Child's Christmas in Wales
3. What d ya mean
4. Things
5. Sold Motel
6. Walking The Dog
7. Antarctica Starts Here
8. Waiting For The Man
9. Femme Fatale/ Rose Garden Funeral of Tears
10. Fear
11. Dirty Ass Rock n Roll
12. Gun
13. Pablo Picasso
14. Encore: Venus in Furs

Cale on Piano

John Cale 22 January 2010
Hobart - Theatre Royal
Eight Hands: variation on the Theme 'Piano'

4 pianists each doing their separate performances in succession John was fourth and final. He performed two pieces solo on piano over 20 minutes:
1. Peace in the Rigging
2. Glen Gould at Work and Play
John employed some intriguing effects over the piano pieces giving them an edge. "Peace" is a slower atmospheric piece. "Glen" is somewhat reminiscent of the style employed on the piano version of tracks such as "Do not go Gentle into that Good Night" with the added effects.

John Cale in Australia

Sydney key note talk 15 January 2010

Excellent performance. Essentially John giving an anecdotal laced review of his musical career. Started with him showing the "I've got a Secret" footage and ended with a mighty rendition of Heartbreak Hotel (evolved from the 2007 version quite significantly). For the latter, the band appeared from behind a curtain by surprise as up to then it had just been talk with the odd slide and background music (mostly drone). The talk focussed a lot on the pre-Velvets time period. The VU was also covered and then bits and pieces all the way through. I got the impression that he was prepared to say a lot more but (as with most lectures) the time went by too quickly. A surprise was that he talked quite a bit about the Croydon 'chicken' incident.

Sydney Show - Enmore Theatre 16 January 2010

1. Captain Hook

2. Mercenaries

3. Walking The Dog

4. Model Beirut Recital

5. Helen of Troy

6. Dying on The Vine

7. Waiting For The Man

8. Femme Fatale/ Rose Garden Funeral

9. Child's Christmas In Wales

10. Amsterdam

11. Fear

12. Paris 1919

13. Dirty Ass Rock n Roll

14. Gun

15. Pablo Picasso

Powerful show in the spirit of 'Sabotage'. Suggested up front by opening with Capt. Hook. I recognised it straight away but couldn't believe it. Mercenaries was also back to the Sabotage style. Other notable version points being Gun and Amsterdam. The former was aggressive and guitar driven in a way like the original album but still quite different. It segued naturally into Pablo which gives an indication of the style (Pablo was as on Circus). Amsterdam was also unique-not acoustic guitar but keyboard driven with a beautiful full band arrangement. The acoustic guitar was not touched all night as wasn't the post 1985 catalogue. Child's Christmas had to be restarted after things went haywire. Brilliant show. I am looking forward to the next 6 events in Hobart.

John Cale Nico Symphony - Hobart Town Hall 19 January 2010

1. Introduction by John Cale

2. Modelling

3. Ari Sleepy Too

4. Iceberg 2

John gave a nice introduction about Nico and the symphony/ ballet. A beautiful performance. His current band participated.

Composer -John Cale

Violin - Yue Hong Cha

Viola - Andrew Metaxas

Viola - Will Clark

Viola -Joe St. Leon

Cello - Sue-Ellen Paulsen

Double Bass - Michael Fortescue

Guitar & noise - Dustin Boyer

Cajon & noise - Michael Jerome

Keys & noise - Joseph Karnes

Dark Days 20 January 2010

Wonderful and disturbing. Great soundtrack that I can only hope will be released. Features spoken word, drone, symphonic, and song all great!

John Cale and band (acoustic) Hobart Town Hall 20 January 2010

1. Frozen Warnings

2. Over Her Head

3. Child's Christmas in Wales

4. Dying on the Vine

5. Style it Takes

6. E is Missing

7. Things

8. Buffalo Ballet

9. Amsterdam

10. The Endless Plane of Fortune

11. Chinese Envoy

12. Andalucía

13. Heartbreak Hotel

14. Dancing Undercover

15. Hallelujah

16. Encore - Paris 1919

All tracks feature usual three band members with electric guitar/ acoustic guitar; percussion and double bass.

John Cale at the:

1. piano for 1 - 5, 8, 13, 15 & 16;

2. Acoustic Guitar for 6,7 & 14

3. Keyboard for the rest

And the set list only gives half the story. So many songs had wonderful new arrangements. Hallelujah while piano based was different enough to prevent the audience recognising it until John sang. Dancing Undercover has come such a long way, it was one of the best on offer with a strong two acoustic guitar, double bass and drums delivery plus screeching viola (and Elvis Presley "Thank you very much") samples. The arrangement is strongly reminiscent of John's version of Memphis from Animal Justice and later live versions. E and Things were also lovely deliveries with John on acoustic guitar. Amsterdam was the new version that was presented in Sydney, haunting and beautiful. Heartbreak Hotel was again different. Based on the stripped down piano version but even more discordant and with the band accompaniment (and an original Elvis version sample). Finally, the Endless Plane of Fortune was ... wow. ps starting with Frozen warnings was inspired it segued smoothly into Over her head.

John Cale in Conversation Hobart 21 January 2010

55 minutes on stage in discussion with the interviewer and then towards the end with questions from the audience. The main discussion notably focussed on John's very early career and life. The role of music in his life in his childhood, his musical education in Europe, his work with John Cage and his subsequent work with La Monte Young. He also covered his leaving Wales and Welsh and factors that influenced that. Very much about his avant-garde work and life in NY in the early 1960s. Some interesting information such as John's retaining a notebook with 350 short compositions of his in which he tried to achieve what he saw La Monte as achieving.

John Cale - Dark Days 22 January 2010

Second viewing and I was able to take more in. It is very much symbolic of his childhood and the urge to escape. The start features a drone. Then silence followed by ambient sounds (mostly water dropping) and a view of a door close up. Second screen features the larger doorway view into a room with a piano. A piano track commences. Haunting, then John's image slowly fades in. The music stops and the ghostly presence evaporates. John enters the room and sits at the piano but can't think to play anything. After several near commencements he gives up and walks out. Next scene of view up the quarry/ hillside. Close up of John's face as he climbs with heaving breath. Spoken word track while this takes place discussing childhood in Wales. Couldn't take all the words in but there were clear references to last night's talk with the cementing of soil floor helping his asthma. He gets to the top and the scene is nearly over. Next scene is again in the house with a focus out a window. The music starts and it a pleasant building instrumental possibly indicating exotic possibilities beyond the home. It eventually breaks down into a more discordant version with choral voices. Next scene is back showing the house in ruin with a focus on an empty white room and a door frame. A (rock) song accompanies this with plenty of lyrics which I couldn't note other than Hollywood mentions. Vocal buried in the mix. Powerful though. Then silence and ambient sounds again. Followed by darkness and the grand final rather terrifying scene with very discordant soundtrack.

John Cale 22 January 2010

Hobart - Theatre Royal

Eight Hands: variation on the Theme 'Piano'

4 pianists each doing their separate performances in succession John was fourth and final. He performed two pieces solo on piano over 20 minutes:

1. Peace in the Rigging

2. Glen Gould at Work and Play

John employed some intriguing effects over the piano pieces giving them an edge. "Peace" is a slower atmospheric piece. "Glen" is somewhat reminiscent of the style employed on the piano version of tracks such as "Do not go Gentle into that Good Night" with the added effects.

John Cale Hobart PW1 23 January 2010

1. Captain Hook

2. Child's Christmas in Wales

3. What d ya mean

4. Things

5. Sold Motel

6. Walking The Dog

7. Antarctica Starts Here

8. Waiting For The Man

9. Femme Fatale/ Rose Garden Funeral of Tears

10. Fear

11. Dirty Ass Rock n Roll

12. Gun

13. Pablo Picasso

14. Encore: Venus in Furs

The final installment, what a time!