At the time, Portsmouth Guildhall was having a brief but ambitious spell that included gigs by Bob Dylan and The Who as well which are acts somewhat above their usual fare. Of those, it would always be Lou that I would want to see the most.
The famous Warhol banana LP The Velvet Underground and Nico is a favourite, a genuine favourite because of the music it contains rather than any critic's hipster acknowledgement of its 'influence'. It is surely better to be 'any good' than influential. It mixes the low-life, bohemian themes of sado-masochism, New York streets and dark self-indulgence with the rare beauty of the pharmaceutical daydream of Sunday Morning, and the Nico classics I'll Be Your Mirror and Femme Fatale.
Transformer was the commercial success in the early 70's that Bowie worked on but I'm not sure who was learning more from who in that symbiotic relationship and Bowie songs like Queen Bitch suggest that the Dame took a fair bit from not only Lou but the whole Warhol Factory milieu. Well, we know he did.
Lou Reed was one of those pop songwriters that could be realistically termed a 'poet' if any such cross reference were felt to be useful. With a recognizable world view, coming from an early career on a hit production line, modernist sensibility and a life that provided all he might have needed to reflect back the tawdry downside of urban style, gloss and glamour, his most memorable aside in the Portsmouth gig was, 'after the first kiss, it's downhill all the way'.
