Monday 18 September 2023

John Cale - Stroud Sub Rooms (23-08-23)

Alongside visiting Slad, another big reason for staying in Stroud was to see John Cale at the Sub Rooms:

The Sub Rooms turned out to be a great small music venue holding about 450 people:

The last time I'd seen John Cale was just short of 20 years ago in Warsaw, Poland when he'd done quite a few Velvet Underground tunes (e.g. coming on with Venus in Furs).

But nearly 20 years later, this concert at the Sub Rooms had a completely different (but equally interesting) feel with Cale's solo material taking centre stage.


And surprisingly, with the length of a few of the tunes, the gig had a kind of Prog feel to it (this was fine with me as I love Prog).


My favourite tunes of the night were Moonstruck (Nico's Song), love the melody of this song, and the almost hypnotic Villa Albani which Cale and his great band bowed out with.

I was also impressed by the fantastic staff at the Sub Rooms: they noticed that my travelling friend was hobbling around with blistered feet and, several times, they asked if they could help him in any way.

Thus, all in all, it was a great night at the Sub Rooms with, of course, the legendary John Cale taking centre stage (being in his early 80s and having such energy). It was an honour to see him.

After the gig, we took a taxi back to Stan's Field (our campsite in Stroud) as we were on the move again the following morning.

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