Chelsea Town Hall

ニコの85年ライヴ・パフォーマンス!

荘厳とした音世界とそれを突き抜くような太く鋭く、優しさも狂気もはらんだニコの歌声。存命中は決して相応の評価をされることの無かった彼女が当時から唯一無二のパフォーマーだったことを証明し、それを上回る感動を与えてくれる圧倒的なライヴ音源。モデルとして活動を開始し女優としても活動、65年に1STソロ・シングル・デビューし、ヴェルヴェット・アンダーグラウンドとの活動を経て本格的なソロ活動へと転じたニコ。本作は最後のオリジナル・アルバムとなった『Camera Obscura』をリリースした85年のライヴです。パーカッションにハルモニウム、シンセサイザーによる荘厳で不気味で凍り付くようなサウンドと圧倒的なニコの力強い歌声が作り出す別世界に連れていかれるようなサウンドに終始圧倒される名演が詰まっています。

Someone once described Nico as "famous but not popular," and it was sadly fitting that her greatest moment of public recognition came on an album that was initially a massive flop. At the behest of their manager and mentor, Andy Warhol, Nico was briefly a member of the Velvet Underground, and sang three songs on their groundbreaking 1967 debut The Velvet Underground & Nico before being edged out of the group over personal and creative differences. For the next 21 years, Nico stubbornly carved out a career making purposefully difficult music that often had more to do with European art music than rock & roll, even the intelligent and innovative sort the Velvets pioneered, and she attracted a small if loyal following, along with a somewhat larger number of curiosity seekers wondering what shes been doing since the VUs debut. Through most of the 1970s and 80s, she did this while maintaining a dependence on heroin that governed her life as much as her art. James Young, who played piano in Nicos band in the last years of her life, wrote a witty but harrowing account of working with her titled Songs They Never Play on the Radio, and in the book he described her June 1985 show in Londons Chelsea district as one of the best they ever played, in part due to the presence of "celebrity junkies" and a nearby rehab clinic. Young describes most of their gigs as shambolic, but Chelsea Town Hall, a restored and remastered 2025 release of that 1985 concert, reveals an artist who was still a commanding performer, even if she wasnt working with ideal accompanists. Percussionist Eric Ramsden and synth player Graham Dowdall have an unfortunate habit of trying to give some of the tunes a bit of new wave edge with busy beats and electronic squeals that were a poor fit then and sound comical now, especially in contrast with Nicos dour vocals, the determined wheeze of her harmonium, and the relentlessly gloomy tone of her lyrics. Nicos music was not fun, and she never meant it to be, and in this performance it works best with the least accompaniment, such as "Janitor of Lunacy" and "You Forgot to Answer," which feature just Nicos voice and harmonium, and an a cappella version of the Velvet Underground classic "All Tomorrows Parties." That said, the band does manage to rise to the occasion on several tunes, and "Tananore," "My Heart Is Empty," and "Sixty Forty" find them effectively matching her strong Teutonic spirit. Not everyone took Nico seriously in her years as a solo artist, and that was one of many things that hobbled her art, especially in the 80s, but Chelsea Town Hall shows she was far from a spent force, and the best moments here are remarkably powerful. (An edited and re-sequenced version of this concert was previously released in 1994 as Chelsea Girl Live.) ~ Mark Deming