A View From the Bridge Revisited

So long time readers may recall that back in 2007(!) -- shortly after NYMary gave me the metaphorical keys to the car around here -- I chanced across a highly primitive live clip on YouTube of Brit cult figure Terry Reid doing The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" (which I have been known to refer to as the most beautiful song written in the English language in the second half of the 20th Century).

And that as a result I was moved to write a long and passionate essay about why I found the clip so astoundingly and deeply moving. (It was a piece I was as proud of as anything I had ever written and, to my vast relief, the comments on it at the time were nothing but favorable. But I digress.)

I've reposted it on a couple of instances subsequently, but you can find it in its initial appearance over here, including a still working link to the video in question. I think both the video and my essay hold up, but obviously I'm prejudiced.

In any case, as I said, the video itself -- which was shot on an obsolete format called MiniDVD, in live-from-the-audience mono sound -- was technically primitive, but as I argued in the essay, it was emotionally devastating despite all that, or perhaps partly because of all that. Nonetheless, I was later able to get in touch with various people who had been there when it was shot, including the band's drummer, and I have subsequently lived in hope that a better quality version of the performance might surface someday.

Long story short, that's not gonna happen, for a variety of reasons.

But now there's this -- a fabulous (albeit not quite as unexpected and surprising) performance of the song by the same folks at the same LA club in vastly superior quality. Although still shot by somebody in the audience, this time with (I presume) a cell phone camera (it's actually stereo, though).



Bottom line: It's fucking great and I can now die happy. Enjoy.

Have I mentioned that when Reid goes into doo-wop falsetto as the song rides out that I swoon?

[h/t MJConroy]