Listen to Lou Reed perform at The Mann Center in 1986

The poet laureate of rock and roll debauchery, Lou Reed, had a spectacular run of solo records across the 70s and into the 80s. Some critics argue that that streak ended 30 years ago this May, when Reed released Mistrial – an album recorded with a new group of players and laced with 80s production gloss and drum machine rhythms.

Whatever your take on the record is, the crowd at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts sounded positively pumped to hear Reed play in this recording of a Philly concert from 30 years ago today. Joining him are Fernando Saunders on bass, J.T. Lewis on Drums, Eddi Martinez on guitar, Rick Bell on sax and Woody Smallwood on keys, and the band works its way through seven out of Mistrial‘s 10 songs – the funky “Video Violence” sounds particularly indebted to the Talking Heads.

There’s classic Reed, of course – “Real Good Time Together” and the title track from 1978’s Street Hassle, three selections from 1972’s iconic Transformer (including, of course, “Walk on the Wild Side”), and the immortal “Sweet Jane” from VU’s classic Loaded. He places that song at the second position of the setlist, almost challenging the crowd by giving them the best-known cut right up front – like as if to say “are you gonna stay or are you gonna go?”

This Reed was clearly not overly fixated on the hits, and a nice chunk of the setlist came from his critically acclaimed early 80s albums, New Sensations and Legendary Hearts.

Listen to a recording of the show below, via YouTube – it comes from a bootleg CD dubbed Philadelphia Special.

Were you at this show? What are your memories of it? Let us know in the comments.

(UPDATE: When we wrote this post in 2016, the entire Philadelphia Special bootleg was streaming on YouTube. It has since been removed, but can be heard in full via Wolfgang’s Vault. You can also check out a few snippets below.)