When Lou Reed took to the stage at the GQ Men of the Year awards at the Covent Garden Opera House on September 3 this year, we couldn't know it would be his last significant public appearance.
Just 54 days later, at the age of 71, he would be dead.
When we first thought about who who we wanted to give our Inspiration award to, there was only one name we spoke of - Lou Reed. Some people inspire movements, some inspire generations. But Lou Reed inspired almost every generation - from punk in the Seventies, to glam in the Eighties, to alternative rock in the Nineties. Hell, his halting delivery was even sometimes credited with inventing rap. Brian Eno famously said that The Velvet Underground's 1967 debut album *The Velvet Underground &
Nico* - which bombed at the time, selling just 10,000 copies - may not have sold many, but for those who did buy it, most were inspired to form a band.
Today, he's the bedrock for everything that has come since. Just this year he spoke admiringly of Kayne West's latest album. Unlike other ageing rockers, the music landscape had never left him, because he still defined it.
Put simply: who better to give our Inspiration award to? We asked, and - almost to our surprise - he said yes, he'd be delighted to come and accept the award. We were over the moon.
Of course, it almost didn't happen. Twice.
No sooner had we got the ball rolling, back in May this year, than, in early June, Reed's wife gave an interview saying he had been on the verge of death with a failing liver - brought on from years of drug and alcohol abuse - and recently had a liver transplant, commenting, "It's as serious as it gets. He was dying.
You don't get it for fun."
Remarkably, we were told it hadn't changed anything. He was still very much up for it. Lou Reed was not going to be stopped by the mere fact someone else's organ had been put in his body.
Indeed, after the operation, he was as bullish as ever, convinced the rest of the world's rules didn't - hell, shouldn't - apply to him, and proclaimed himself "a triumph of modern medicine", and was "bigger and stronger than ever".
Then, barely a month after that, when it was reported on 2 July
that Reed he was admitted back into hospital to receive treatment for "severe dehydration", I emailed his publicist once more to ask if he was okay. Would he really still be able to travel to London?
Of course, came the reply. It was only a short hospital stay. "Happens to the best of us I guess," his publicist added. "And we haven't lived his life, that's for sure!"
Of the latter, you could not argue.
To write the citation in the magazine - the piece detailing why Reed was a worthy winner of the Inspiration award - I reached out to Iggy Pop's management, and almost instantly was told that Iggy he would be delighted to write about his old friend. He seemed to provoke that in people. Lou? Sure. It would be an honour. The words, too, came straight away, and were perfect. "As a young man starting out in music I wanted to follow a path that had honesty and heart," he began. "On that path, Lou Reed has been the bedrock beneath my feet, a beacon shinning through the black night of crap."
He had a "kind of buoyancy and flexibility" said Iggy, that makes him so hard to imprison. He could do anything. He was one of the few guys who had been in the industry for so long, and yet still had a true feeling for the world around him, a way of connecting with the world. "Most of the others," he wrote dryly, "just end up singing in the mirror."
For each of our winners, we traditionally selected a piece of music that accompanied the walk to the stage to collect their award. For many, it was a challenge: what felt right? For Lou Reed, the problem was what didn't. Where did you start? What about "Perfect Day" - that dreamy soulful ballad of Transformer?
How about Walk of the Wild Side, that transgressive tale of sordid sex in Andy Warhol's factory that remains to this day a minor miracle it made the radio waves? Would a track from Metal Machine Music - a double-album of white noise reportedly released to screw over his label - reflect his don't-give-a- damn attitude? In the end, we went for "Romeo Had Juliet", from his 1989 album New York. It showed, we felt, that unlike other artists whose creativity comes early and flickers out all too soon, Reed's shone bright throughout his life.
When we pondered who would be good to present the award to him on the night, we knew we needed someone equally iconic. Someone who had been around for as long as Lou Reed, but also remained as relevant as him. It wasn't a long list. But, as with everyone else, for Reed, nothing was too big an ask. The first person we asked -
Ronnie Wood - said yes without hesitation.
He could be known as demanding, a nightmare interviewee, and I'd be lying if we said we didn't experience a little of that in arranging his travel to the awards. Everything was scrutinised, schedules combed over, services demanded and questioned. But it was the nature of the man - constantly questioning, expecting perfection, or as close as damn it.
When he arrived at the awards, he looked unwell, but not gravely so. A little frail, maybe, the look of a man who now planned three steps ahead, but he had colour in his cheeks, and the bombast was still there. He certainly didn't look as you might expect from a man who had just taken two good hard swings at death and was still standing to tell the tale. I remember, mostly, the fact he required a handrail - one we had to hastily construct - to climb the meagre three or four steps to the stage. He was proud, bullish, but he knew the strength was no longer there, that his body was betraying him.
I was sat on a table next to Gordon Smart - then the celebrity editor of The Sun, now the editor of the Scottish Sun - who said to me: "It's an amazing line-up, look at all these people. But I have to be honest, I just saw Lou Reed, and for me, he's the most exciting person in the room."
He had that effect on people. In the traditional scale of celebrity, maybe Lou Reed wasn't the main attraction that night.
The likes of Michael Douglas drew hushed whispers, Justin Timberlake the amour of practically every lady in the room, Tom Ford transfixed the fashoinista crew. There was Pharell Williams, the Arctic Monkeys, Noel Gallagher, Emma Watson.... but Lou Reed was something special, and we all knew it. Of everyone there, his hand was the most shook.
At the podium, also, he received one of the loudest cheers of the night. "There's only one great occupation that can change the world," he said, accepting his award, "and that is real rock 'n' roll." The crowd whooped and clapped. "I believe, to the bottom of my heart, the last cell, that rock and roll can change everything."
They clapped again - an outpouring of appreciation. "And I'm a graduate of Warhol - The University. And I believe in the power of
punk." He slammed the word down like a challenge. "And I believe - to this day - I want to blow it up. Thank you." Cue the screams.
Lou Reed left the stage one last time, and the final lines of "Romeo Had Juliette" thrummed through the Opera House air: "And something flickered for a minute / and then it vanished and was gone."
