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every year again and again... No maybe not every year, but let's say, in a rather regulare base, the mastro of avantgart visits Munich. And every time, all those admirer of the post Andy Warhol era come along to celebrate their glorified past with the sound of Velvet Underground and John Cale solo music.
Whereby - just to mention it, Cale had been only in Velvet Underground from 1965 to 68, together with his famous collegue Lou Reed. Since then he's only followed his solo paths, and he still does including production for other artists. He now can look back on 44 albums, having released throughout his carriere, many movie soundtracks and live records as well.

John Cale has always gonne very individual ways and has never followed any chichees or trends. He never bothered about conventions. John Cale Music is simply John Cale music. That's why he never ever had a top 40 hit in the US and not even a top 100 in his home country England. So over all, this artist has reached his reputation only because of his Velvet Underground past and his strange individuality, which is beloved by individual consumers only and old Velvet fans. 
He just released a new Live Album named "Circus Live". And that's the main reason we got him back here again. 
 tour begeben, um zu beweisen, dass seine Live-Geschichten wirklich so einmalig sind, wie sie auf CD den Anschein geben.
                                                                                         
Der Tempel ist jedenfalls gut gefüllt heute Abend hier in München. Und an der Tür hängt ausnahmsweise ein Hinweis auf ein absolut-striktes Rauchverbot 
Due  to a special request of the artist - no smoking at all. In the states this is a common thing already, not so over here. Alrighty, the audiance follow the rules. Noone wants to get pushed out from our strict security guys. However, it won't take much longer, and soon, the situation will be similar to the states, and this problem ist out the way for good. Beeing a nonsmoker all my life, I don't care anyway. But I'm happy, that the air ain't that bad tonight in here.  

At 8.30 p.m. the lights go out and a strange sound in 3 tunes comes out of the amps - and this for 15 minutes. Christ.... I don't mind excentric ambitions, but this here is just too much for our tortured ears. To be honest, I don't exactly know, what the sense behind this intro is....

And there he comes, the king of artrock, which he celebrates for the past 45 years more than any other artist. The focus lies on him and the background band is a treu 'background' band. Cale starts his set with the guitar, standing behind the mic and tuning in into the song "Helen Of Troy". Later during the gig, he exchanges the six strings with the keyboard. He's presenting us a collection of his well known songs including a very abstract version of the oldie song 'Walking the Dog'. You've gotta listen carefully to recognize the tune. But also the excellent „Hey Ray“, „A Day In The Life Of A Common Call“ “Emily” and “Big White Cloud” or “You Know More Than I Know” found their way on the setlist. He's performing another cover version of Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel", and he takes his job very seriously, too seriously in my point of view, because the feeling, that he enjoys  himself most is not recognizable. Cale often gives little handsigns to the soundengineer, if something doesn't sound right to him. sound sequels, the audiance is not even aware off.

In the end, 64 year old John Cale succeeds once again with his performance at his fans. For me personally, despite the Velvet Underground past tense, this music is a bit too strange. But as we all know, individual tastes of music are often very different, so what......?!

                                                                                       http://www.john-cale.com/