Life Along the Borderline - A Tribute to Nico

Nick Franglen, however, is the first to really enhance our understanding of Nico, instead of sanitizing a sound that's implicitly flawed, for being re-arranged. In the course of one song, the grand piano and clarinet bring out the classical prettiness of which Nico was more than capable – and then explode into a pandemonium of squeals, hammering and clattering, that constitute a total assault on the senses. Nico described Eno's contribution to The End (1974) as "bomb-noises" and this sounds like a rocket-attack. Thumb's up boys – no critical execution for you…

Immediately after, Cale returns to the piano, with a smiley Lisa Gerrard for a straight version of 'The Falconer' if-Nico-had-still-been-alive-and-healthy-to-play-the-RFH-in-her-60s. You know what? She'd have been magnificent. We'd have packed in, with or without the cult-figures. Next up: the Fiery Furnaces; admittedly, a band whose reputation as re-interpreters mystifies me (it's not hard to re-interpret 'Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Dah' now, is it?). Nonetheless, Nico interspersed her own intricate compositions with weird choppy little dittys, and the Siblings Friedberger make for a change of mood, even if it means squandering Nico's desolate vision of the end of time in 'Evening of Light' by making it into something so frivolous.

The highlight of the show, without question, is Liz Green. Taking on 'Ari's Song' (with its refrain "sail away, my little boy"), hers is the only performance that absolutely catches the mood of the original. It's haunted, it's harrowing, it's a trip in which you see your own death from a hundred angles. True, these are all meant to be re-interpretations, but when you hear something this close, you realize that remit's a potential cop-out, rather than necessarily being a challenge.

It’s as if these artists secretly prefer the Nico of Chelsea Girl. Take Mark Linkous – looking suave in his Reservoir Dogs outfit, and cowboy hat – if anyone knows how to set Romantic poetry to fragile music, it's him; plus, there are echoes of Nico's story in his own: 4 albums in 13 years due to heroin; temporary brain-death; depression. Thing is: he doesn't want to raise those ghosts, and he's earned the right not to. His arrangement resembles 1980s Pink Floyd, with female backing-vocalists & "seagull" guitar, and this is the point I realize darkness is a young man's (or woman's) game. Still, Mark Lanegan can Bring the Evil. With his cavernous voice he more than does justice to 'Roses in the Snow', and recalls Nick Cave's epic cover of 'All Tomorrow's Parties'.

The effort put into this tribute is stunning, the RFH looks splendid, but the best thing it does is to remind you how reluctant most people are to touch what's at the core of Nico