Lou Reed - Giardini Centro Allende, La Spezia, Italy, June 1, 2006

Lou Reed - Giardini Centro Allende, La Spezia, Italy, June 1, 2006My heroic attempt to get #Mistrial40 going last week has yet to deliver any meaningful results. Don’t worry, I’ll keep fighting the good fight — but I worry that not enough people care about what Lou Reed was up to in 1986. But do even less people care about what Lou Reed was up to in 2006?! Maybe! But that’s not going to stop me. Obviously. Twenty years ago, Lou was actually still playing Mistrial’s “Tell It To Your Heart” — and we can hear a nice version on a late-spring tape of a show on the coast of northern Italy. In fact, the setlist during this era is packed with latter-day deep cuts; the 60s and 70s are only glanced at, really: “Perfect Day,” an oddly rocked-up “Jesus,” “Coney Island Baby” and a perfunctory encore of “Sweet Jane.” Lou and co. are more interested in playing tunes from Magic & Loss, Set The Twilight Reeling, The Blue Mask and beyond. And The Raven, too! That strange Poe project was a few years old…