It was another one of the hot nights. You always expect it to cool down once the sun sets but the temperature just stays the same. I decided to walk, a little dressed up and in a hurry. Walking fast. Walking like I was rubbing out cigarettes with each step.

It was at The Enmore Theatre, a nice old venue with a bar called The Cafe on the side and all the trappings of Australia's wannabe art deco phase. People were milling around the entrance not sure if they should head inside yet. No one ever seems to pay attention to the support act any more. They show up late, watch the show then run back outside. Who knows where.

I picked up my tickets and had to wrangle a media pass. “Three songs and get straight out of there... like run. He’s been known to walk off stage in the middle of a gig.” It felt close up in that pit, close enough to touch. There he was, Cale, straightened purple hair and shimmering vest glaring at his keyboard like a drunk man offended.

Those first three songs felt like something sweet. They became one block of discordant blues as jagged as Cale’s expression and as soft and well trained as his tapping fingers. Placed deep towards the back of the stage his band played on in a practiced reverie, responding to the history of the man before them.

I moved through the crowd trying to find some cool air, it was a mixture of generations, old people with young smiles and every variation in-between, the speaker rumbled “they say fear is a man’s best friend” and I stared longingly at the viola mounted on stage waiting for Venus In Furs.

There was no encore. Instead the lights came on early to sighs from the audience. Later over beers in The Cafe I found out that Cale’s voice wasn’t fit to continue so he never picked up that viola.

(John Cale, The Enmore Theatre, part of Circa 1979: Signal to Noise)