I’ve mentioned here previously the time in 1979 I went to see Lou Reed at what was then still known as the Hammersmith Odeon when he reacted testily to requests from the crowd to play their favourite numbers by announcing that he would under no circumstances be playing anything else that night apart from his new album, The Bells, so there would, he repeated emphatically, no “Heroin”, “Sweet Jane”, “Walk On The Wild Side” or any of the other numbers so many people had obviously come to hear him perform. If anybody didn’t like this, he said, they could fuck off – which a large section of the increasingly disgruntled crowd did, what seemed like at least half the audience walking out in angry disgust, nosily vacating the premises in a collective huff that was quite hilarious. Lou waited until the very last of this disenchanted sullen mob had moodily departed and then with glorious perversity launched into what you’d probably call a greatest hits set that included with predictable cussedness a sublime version of “Heroin”. What you wondered turning up last Sunday, nearly 30 years later, might Lou have in store for us tonight. Since we had turned up to hear Lou play, as advertised, his 1973 song-cycle Berlin in its spectacularly maggoty entirety, might he similarly decide to thwart his audience’s feverish expectations by playing the whole of a completely different album -Transformer, perhaps, or Coney Island Baby. In the event, Lou played, exactly as promised, the version of Berlin that he and producer Bob Ezrin had intended all those years ago for release – until their original vision was compromised by a thoroughly rattled RCA, who demanded Ezrin cut what had been recorded as a double album down to a single disc. I remember drinking with Lou in a hotel bar in Stockholm in 1977 and listening to him for more than an hour bitterly denounce what had happened to the record he’d always thought of as his defining masterpiece, the savage dismissal of it by critics and an ensuing public indifference to the album that left him heartbroken and angry. “After that,” he said, “the shutters came down. I didn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone.” Nigh on 25 years after it came out, Berlin is most commonly regarded as the masterpiece Lou always thought it was, and it might be difficult now to appreciate fully why at the time it caused such a stir. These many years on, however, it remains a frightening, grim and wholly sad epic about love and violence, drugs and suicide – and as performed tonight with a red-hot band of Lou regulars, plus original Berlin and Rock’N’Roll Animal guitarist Steve Hunter, augmented by members of the New London Choir and the London Metropolitan Orchestra, it’s a signal moment in Lou’s career, a triumphant vindication of his original intentions. I don’t think I’ve seen him this good since – oh, at least, the 1978 Street Hassle tour. From the choir’s ghostly intro, anticipating the final refrains of the climactic “Sad Song”, the mood of the evening is grimly etched, the sense of ominous foreboding that builds through “Berlin”, “Lady Day” and “Men Of Good Fortune” reaching an early eerie peak with “Caroline Says” and “How Do You Think It Feels?”, things getting darker in a hurry with “Oh Jim” and “Caroline Says II”, an accumulation of unspoken woe, Lou and Hunter’s guitars combining brilliantly here to give voice to things words can’t say. The heart-wrenching centrepieces of the performance, however, are the harrowing “The Kids” and the jaw-droppingly moving “The Bed”, a thing of spectral beauty and hushed terror, which gives way eventually to the grand agonised climax of “Sad Song”, featuring the overwhelming combined weight of band, choir and orchestra, with Hunter’s guitar driving through the elegant turmoil like muted lightning, Lou imperious at its epic centre as the song goes on and on and the apparently endless refrain of grief and calamity and endless writhing sadness reaches a final moment of cathartic wounded splendour. Amazing. After a brief interlude, the whole ensemble returns for the welcome relief of wholly buoyant encores of timeless crowd-pleasers “Sweet Jane” – fantastically, the Rock’N’Roll Animal version, albeit with an abbreviated version of Hunter’s famous guitar intro - a storming “Satellite Of Love”, with lead vocals from bassist Fernando Saunders and a wittily delivered “Walk On The Wild Side”. Tremendous, unforgettable stuff and a sensational reminder of Lou’s enduring genius. No wonder by the end, we were treated to the rare sight of the famous curmudgeon smiling broadly in his moment of victory. Lou Reed played: Berlin Lady day Men Of Good Fortune Caroline Says How Do You Think It feels Oh Jim Caroline Says II The Kids The Bed Sad Song Encores: Sweet Jane Satellite Of Love Walk On The Wild Side

A lot of slightly anxious looking at the weather forecast this morning. It's Uncut's tenth birthday party this evening, and The Hold Steady are meant to be playing on the roof of our building. Looking forward to the band's show tonight reminded me, though, that I've been meaning to write about the Jason Isbell solo album for what seems like months now. Isbell, as you probably know, until recently figured in Alabama's mighty Drive-By Truckers, a band you could crudely describe as a kind of Southern Rock analogue to The Hold Steady. Of the three frontmen in the Truckers, it always seemed that Isbell - younger, intensely talented, rarely getting as many songs per record as Patterson Hood - would leave sooner or later. "Sirens Of The Ditch", his first solo album, is not, however, any kind of parting shot. In fact, I think it was pretty much recorded two or three years ago, and has sat on the shelf until now. As such, it might be a mistake to judge this as the best of Isbell, recorded as it was at a time when he'd give his best songs to the Truckers. Consequently there's nothing here that's quite the match of his very best songs like "Danko/Manuel". That said, it's still a pretty auspicious start. "Sirens Of The Ditch" tones down the grappling, hairy attack of the Truckers: the influence of Patterson Hood's father David, a noted Muscle Shoals session man, is maybe more pronounced than that of his son. "Hurricanes And Hand Grenades", in particular, has that sticky lope so familiar from local soul records, and you can imagine Isbell fancying himself as a boyish Dan Penn, perhaps. There is rock here - the opening "Brand New Kind Of Actress" has a certain Stonesy lash to it. But the double-barrelled Lynyrd Skynyrd raunch of the Truckers is largely absent. Instead, Isbell asserts himself as a confident if rueful singer-songwriter, operating in that peculiar southern hinterland between country, folk, soul and rock. Steve Earle is a vague reference point, but - a few corny moments of male angst notwithstanding - Isbell is a strong enough songwriter to stake out his own turf. "Dress Blues" and "Grown" are especially lovely, but the best thing about "Sirens Of The Ditch" is that I suspect he has a dozen better songs ready to go. We should keep an eye on him, for sure. Oh yeah, here's Jason's Myspace.

Unlike some music journalists, I'm not hugely sentimental about where I come from. I've worked with people who've been pathologically loyal to the music that comes out of their hometowns, in a way which seemed to contradict their actual taste. Of course, the fact that the musical riches of North Nottinghamshire are pretty skimpy might have something to do with it. Occasionally, though, I do feel the odd pang of loyalty when I hear music from Sheffield. It's the city closest to where I grew up and, in fact, the place where I was born. I felt it the other day when I was reading something about Richard Hawley, where he talked about Jessop's hospital being knocked down, and how his mother had worked there for 27 years. I was born there, as it happens, and though my memories of the place are hardly substantial, it did strike a small nerve. Hawley is good at that. In fact, listening to "Lady's Bridge", his new album, it occurs to me that he constructs a faded picture of Sheffield that's so compelling, it can provoke a sense of false nostalgia in anyone who hears it. A lot of the names and territories he describes are alien to me, too; the cultural meaning of Coles Corner is probably, I think, more relevant to my parents than to me. But it's his evocation of a past - imbuing industrial South Yorkshire in the '50s and '60s with an Americanised, mythological sheen - that's so seductive. "Lady's Bridge" is no radical departure from Hawley's previous solo albums but, if anything, it's rooted even more firmly in a glittery dream of Sheffield's past. "Tonight The Streets Are Ours" is a fantastic song; like many of Hawley's best, it sounds like the music Morrissey should be making now, instead of the arthritic attempts at rock relevance that have padded out his last two solo albums. Hawley doesn't bother with relevance, as a cursory listen to the backing vocals to "Tonight The Streets Are Ours" (cooing, schmaltzy, reminiscent of The Ladybirds, perhaps) will attest. For much of the time, his music fits his pose. The Beatles are yet to release a single. Rock'n'roll may have burned itself out. Corned beef is a strong possibility for tea. Hawley is so good at this, though, as his guitar twangs discreetly and his big, crusted voice fills out the sound, that he gets away with it every time. Romance seeps out of every one of his lovely melodies, sometimes inadvertently. "Dark Road" finds him in Johnny Cash mode (or perhaps Lee Marvin; there's a big "Wanderin' Star" echo here), the lonesome drifter looking for a place he can call home. It's so wholehearted, so meticulous, it kind of transcends corniness. On "The Sea Calls", his wandering aesthetic becomes even stronger (Uncut's Paul Moody points out, very wisely, how much he sounds like Fred Neil on this one). Here, though, the music stretches out of focus. There's a tingling, cavernous feel to the production that recalls "Strangeways Here We Come" ("I Won't Share You"), which expands into a sort of reverberant ambience. If not exactly modern-sounding, then certainly out of time. As if Hawley, lost '50s lover, is stuck in limbo, trying to find his way back home. Quite lovely.