Some things are just so counter intuitive it is hard to believe they are actually possible. Like Neil Young for instance. The stalwart 4th member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young-he brought some verisimilitude to the vocal heavy proto boy band super group of the late 60’s. By the mid 70’s, Neil had been written off like his bandmates as washed up remnants of the Woodstock dream. (perhaps less so than the other three) Then out of the blue in 1978, Young came storming out with the punk tinged Hey Hey My My, a song about Johnny Rotten? The Rust Never Sleeps tour that year revitalized his career and shot Young into the spotlight of relevance again-entirely unexpectedly I might add. Crazy Horse-Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and Frank Sampedro turned up the amps and left the country tinged elements behind, scorching stages around the world.
A series of genre challenging albums led by 1983’s synth heavy sci fi album Trans alienated most of the new fans-robot vocals, little guitar, lots of synths-it definitely was a reaction to the times. This was quickly followed by what everyone felt was his apology record, the very brief 25 minute rockabilly Everybody’s Rockin’ released 8 months later. This was followed by a country album in 1985-Neil was all over the place. He seemed to be fading once again into obscurity, perhaps on purpose. He got actually sued by David Geffen for putting out albums ‘unrepresentative of his style’. But he had a large trick left up his sleeve…
Nobody was ready for the one two punch of Freedom and Ragged Glory in 1989 and 1990. The frantic Rocking in the Free World announced to everyone that Neil was back. 1990’s proto grunge album Ragged Glory contained a large amount of what today are his classics, but then were not yet road tested new things: Fuckin’ Up, Love to Burn, Mansion on the Hill, Farmer John, Love and Only Love-this album was overloaded with soon to be classics. Nobody but nobody was prepared for what came next.
Riding the highs of that one two punch, Neil and Crazy Horse took to the road. In the midst of the 1991 Gulf War, Neil Young and Crazy Horse set out on tour with Social Distortion and Sonic Youth as the opening bands, distinctively non-Neil type bands. They were universally ignored by all except the clued in alt rock fans. But one thing they did do-they played LOUD. Ear splitting volumes that to this day people speak of as the single loudest concert they had ever attended. So loud that there were class action suits from people suffering permanent hearing loss from the show. (true)
Taking a page from Sonic Youth’s repertoire, Crazy Horse’s set began to include longer and longer noise and feedback improvisations (cataloged nicely on the companion disc to Weld, the single cd Arc.) The deafening atonal sections surrounded some of the most ear splitting versions of Neil Young songs ever delivered-feedback drenched with literal explosions in the background-it was brutal, and a reflection of the brutality of the Gulf war were quite apparent. The crowd got pummeled into submission. Glorious. That pretty much gets us up to speed for this past week’s show.
Live in Mansfield May 17, 2024
A glimpse of the spirit of the 1991 tour was what I was hoping for. Early reviews of this tour sounded promising-things like a 9.5 minute introduction to Cortez the Killer before he even sang a note early in the tour. Sampedro has retired to be replaced by Nils Lofgren who recently was replaced by Micah Nelson (yes Willie’s kid) a guitarist that at 33 is FORTY SEVEN years younger than the rhythm section of Talbot and Molina, who both clock in at 80 years old apiece. They appeared to force him to keep racing to keep up with them.
A couple of things before the show started. First-no Diet Coke, Coke, Pepsi nothing, no sodas allowed per Neil. Then-no Bud lite, coors lite, no Bud, no crappy beer. Only small batch brewery craft beers allowed. I heard no burgers and no steak too but didn’t take the time to confirm. The big one for many though? No jumbotrons, no screens. You were forced to actually watch the band play from wherever you were sitting. None of the screens in the venue were active, especially the ones designed to show the lawn area what was going on. Throwback Friday it was.
The show started on time with Cortez the Killer, albeit with a short-ish intro. Still, at 78 years old, Neil Young is incendiary onstage. He exudes a solid ‘I don’t give a fuck’ vibe that permeates his guitar playing and singing. A fragile, shaky voice –hearkens back to his line about Danny Whitten in the first incarnation of Crazy Horse – propelled every song. Guitar runs that ran that fine line between loosely controlled and veering well off script into’ what the hell?’ land were in order. Out of tune? No problem. Out of key for a sec? Ditto. Turn that fucker up a notch to compensate.
Things definitely turned up a notch for Cinammon Girl, one of his all time most raucous songs. This was the first time I noticed some agitation from the Neil dabblers, the ones expecting a mainly acoustic guitar and harmonica Dylan-esque evening. This was a full on audio assault. Neil and the band stomped the floor and gathered in front of the drumkit thrashing together in unison. This song is famous for a guitar solo that consists of only a single note repeated, yet somehow is perfect, crackling in repetition but each note crafted in its own individual space-not easy to pull off. Young had what appeared to be an A and B setlist on this tour, mostly similar with some variation in selected slots from night to night. Fuckin Up had been played the show previously, but tonight they threw it to the wind and played it again– launched straight into another high energy footstomper: ‘Why do I-I-I-I keep ffucking upppppp?’ howled into the night. (am embarrassed to say that the only time I’ve seen this song live was a Pearl Jam encore years ago).
Scattered, Roll Another Number For the Road, the first Barstool Blues in ten years and we were headed to the meat of the order. Powderfinger, another deafening sonic blast coupled with Love and Only Love saw us head to a short acoustic set. The wilting acoustic fans heaved a collective sigh as this is what they were there for, not the frantic near mosh pit activity that the barely controlled audience was exhibiting. Hey Hey My My brought everyone to their feet “Rock and Roll will never die!” they shouted in unison from the stage to the lawn.
Encore one was a version of Down By the River that had several extended jam sections inserted into it. The second encore began with a section of full on chaos-feedback, atonal guitars, bass explosions created a miasma of sound that wasn’t a song, it was a throwback to the glory of the 1991 tour. This sonic attack slowly merged into the recognizable You Are Like a Hurricane.
And with that, we were done. Many in the crowd said that it was the best concert they’d seen in years. By anybody. They weren’t wrong. Setlist here
here is a hurricane:
carwreckdebangs 
love your concert reviews/recaps– always you put me right there in the sweaty throngs. i find myself wishing you wrote more often.
about the NY Trans record– from an artist perspective maybe i can throw a light of insight as to what happens with a certain kind of artist. you (or your entire band) have run your course down a certain musical path/style that has unavoidably become your “go-to recipe” to cook up songs. bluntly put, after 3 – 4 records or so, you get sick of yourself. you find yourself stuck on train rails headed where everybody– fans, record companies– desperately want you to go. problem is, to you, “big-money-town” and/or “give ’em what they want” = artistic death.
in order to avoid being cornered into self-caricature you lock throttle, jump off and de-rail the colonel sanders recipe-train off a cliff. Neil Young puts out “Trans”. Alice Cooper puts out “We are Clones”. U2 puts out “Achtung Baby”. Radiohead puts out “Kid A”. kinda like you shoot the tried-and-true, money-making “old sound” in the back of the head and leave its’ corpse by the side of road for the coyotes.
sometimes it works (U2). sometimes it doesn’t (U2). sometimes you find yourself right back where you were and being cool with it (Neil Young). in any case, any artist/band that does this has got my respect. takes a lotta guts.
Thank you so much for the kind words and erudite insight, Jar!
I was working in a record store when Trans came out. Most everyone was like ‘what the fuck???’ I thought it was kinda cool to stick it to ppl a la Lou Reed Metal Machine Music https://carwreckdebangs.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/metal-machine-music-40-years-later-sheer-genius-or-the-biggest-scam-ever-foisted-upon-the-rock-world/
Cheers, Carwreck
ah yes….the delightfully infamous/notorious MMM record!
one of my favorite things to do live, carwreck, is to not rehearse anything. no singing, no songs, no set list. you just show up with one or two other musicians brave enough (very hard to find these) & set up your gear and wing it. it’s always fun (done it 3x in my entire life). same thing happens every time– audience members either stand there perplexed or they love it.
what makes this so fun & compelling is the danger, the unknown, the balls it takes to do it. it’s like taking a car full of passengers onto a dry lakebed and stepping on the gas but you only turn the steering wheel every once in a while. you never know where it’s going to go or what’s going happen. sometimes it goes awry and you can’t save it. you have to wreck the car (ahem) and start over. sometimes it goes somewhere you never thought possible and blows your mind. the fearlessness is all– it’s what saves your life and keeps it all from being boring.
you may have heard of Don Bolles (drummer for The Germs, et al). some years ago, he booked one night a week at a tiny bar in LA. he liked the idea of us having no songs and invited us to come down. so me (bass + a few stompboxes) and an off-kilter guitarist friend of mine who plays on top of a pile of stompboxes showed up as “The Tunguska Event”. we did our thing in total darkness w/camping headlamps on our foreheads while Don did his backdrop screen collage stuff (clips from the Flintstones, Brady Bunch, Sid & Marty Kroft cartoons & suchlike). it was 40 min. of sublime + godawful + everything else in between. the small crowd loved it and wanted to carry on watching us veer and crash and soar and defy death. of course, other acts yet to play did not feel the same way so we dutifully cleared off the stage.
afterwords a strange-looking art-y lady approached me. she took my shoulder, looked at me dead in the eye and with enthusiastic sincerity said: “I know what you guys are trying to do!” Don walked up with a bemused smile on his face saying “that was great! reminded me of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music!” i’d never heard of that record so, of course, the next day i had to have a listen.
my first thought was “what the hell? we sounded WAY better than this!”
Germs!!!Now THAT is a story! Pause for a woahhh. (I think my friend was in the band for a cuppa coffee early aughts?)
I’ve played and play in some bands that grab that ethos of performing live. It’s like a power slide at 40 mph on a snowy road-probably won’t get too hurt, maybe can come out of the skid and continue, might tbone a tree. Knowing all options are on the table keeps thing interesting. If you can trust the insanity, things usually turn out ok.
Did a mid 90s Burning Man show when there was still a main stage and thought ‘perhaps we shoulda rehearsed a set?’ as it was showtime at 2 am or so…
oooohhh……early years of Burning Man, color me impressed! that right there tells me everything i suspected was true about you, is. glad you survived.
my first year was 2006. so many thousands of incredibly beautiful, wonderful people all in one place working their asses off together solely for the purpose of delighting one another. my life was lifted onto another level and i’ve never been the same.
I missed 1995, but a colleague had loaded up in SF and headed out with his group. He had one more credit card, brand new. ‘Pull over! I gotta melt this!” He stopped and bought over $1,000 dollars of fabric in a huuuge bolt no one could carry. He stopped and got some raw wood stakes, surrounded the camp in a lengthy maze of this fabric. Then burned the fucker to the ground. Why? he was asked.
For fun!