John Cale, now seventy, seemed something of an inscrutable old master even when he was young. One has never known quite what he is about, where he is coming from or where he is going to, yet he has always seemed wise,and, somehow, for all the sense of brooding darkness, constrained mania and even the proximity of artistic violence, trustworthy (although he did once bite the head off a chicken, albeit a dead one).

Tonight his talking was in fact minimal - just the names of the songs and a few 'thank you's (still that's more than you usually get from Lou Reed or, for that matter, Bob Dylan) - yet we felt acknowldeged, the audience-artist empathy seemed good.

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