We are indeed fortunate to have someone of this IMMENSE talent still making fresh music with all the verve he brought a score of years ago. My wife intended to go to the Hanover Theater in Worcester, MA last night to see a solo show by this ol' master. I first saw him in Miami on the 'Trans' Tour in 1983, again--this time with Crazy Horse--on the 1996 Horde Festival Tour, and again for 'Greendale' in 2005. The wife tried to work her way through a cold the last ten days and instead ended up with bronchitis so she bailed. I went my buddy from Finland, Paul, and had a fantastic time. We hit a dive called 'The Red Baron' before and after and consumed several Jim Beams over ice. Suitably prepared, we ventured over to the 3,000 seat theater. It was marvelously restored opera house with full carpets, chandeleirs, and uptight ushers. We had second rown in the balcony and a fantastic sight line. Bert Jansch, the Scotsman from Pentangle, opened up and was superb. I forget the name of his third song but it sounded VERY 'Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp', except that it pre-dated it by some years as he explained. He played about 50 minutes. Neil came on about 8:50 P.M. Just Neil....the set was very "Live Rust"--the outsized lamps, the cigar store indian, a huge candle--as customary--was on a riser at the back of the stage. No words of intro...he picks up the guitar and starts.
1. My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue) ... is this the story of the PiL singer I saw 12 days ago?
2. Tell Me Why ... "How ya doin'" he asks...some wiseacre shouts back "How YOU doin'?" amd he responds "We'll see".....laughs
3. Helpless .... goose bumps....so perfect, his voice was 110% here...best version EVER!!
4. You Never Call
5. Peaceful Valley
6. Love And War
7. Down By The River .... for which he picks up "Ol' Blackie"....goose bumps again...
8. Hitchhiker
9. Ohio .... the big solid body Gretsch White Falcon appears....timeless...
10. Sign Of Love ... "I got a new hat" "this isn't it"....laughs...."sometimes the old things are best" ....
11. Leia ... on the pump organ ...
12. After The Gold Rush .... this song frequently brings me to tears ... this version could have ... but witnesses were present!
13. I Believe In You ... at the piano
14. Rumblin'
15. Cortez The Killer ... rippin'!!!
16. Cinnamon Girl .... grungy perfect!!
---
17. Walk With Me
18. Heart Of Gold ....the REAL surprise of the evening, a transcendental version...and we all thought he hated this song!
coupla mo' bourbons ... then a Coke ....
safe drive home, back by 1:10...asleep by 1:15!
a newspaper review...
Forever Young!
Five decades of music rock the Hanover
Neil Young at the Hanover Theatre last night (T&G Staff/Steve Lanava)
By Craig S. Semon telgram and gazette
WORCESTER — Not only will rock 'n' roll never die; if Neil Young's sold-out performance last night at the Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts is any indication, it gets better with age.
As part of his solo “Twisted Road Tour,” and following opener Bert Jansch, Young gave the lucky Neilophiles and Rusties who packed the place a no-frills, passionate performance that was one part retrospective, one part reinvention and one part relaxed rehearsal. His 18-song, one-hour-and-45-minute set (which included a two-song encore) consisted of seven new songs, eight gems from the '70s, two nuggets from the '60s and one unreleased song that before his current tour hasn't been played for 18 years.
There are few veteran rockers who can capture an audience with the sole grace of their words on intimate issues dealing with relationships, romance, personal redemptions, hopes and regrets, and Young is certainly one of them. This show was for Young's most loyal and dedicated fans who are patient for songs to unfold and reveal their genuine rock 'n' roll heart.
Showing no signs of rust or any danger of putting an audience to sleep, The Ragged Glory from the Great White North opened with an acoustic version of “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue),” followed by the twangy crowd-pleaser “Tell Me Why” (from “After the Gold Rush”) and the priceless “Helpless” (from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's “Déja Vu”).
During numbers like “Helpless,” Young showed his uncanny ability to convey the hopes and dreams of an idealistic youth and the triumphs and tragedies of a hardened adult without reverting to cheap embellishment, cheesy melodrama or clumsy bombast. Peppered with melancholy harmonica playing meshing with his chimy acoustic strums, Young's youthful yearnings resonated with the same intimacy, urgency and grace that they did 40 years ago when he first recorded them.
The relaxed, living room-like set served the stripped-down classic and, especially, new tunes well. The 64-year-old, two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer got out of his chair, traded his acoustic guitar for another acoustic (with an electric pickup) and delivered three new songs that nicely stacked up with gems from his catalog.
On the offbeat “You Never Call,” Young depicted God as a loafer, daydreamed about “the ultimate vacation with no back pain” and pontificated on the great Canadian pastime of hockey. It was hard to tell if the song was meant to be funny or profound. Either way, it worked.
There was no question what Young's intentions were on the far from peaceful, “Peaceful Valley.” With a cigar store Indian watching over him (and casting stone cold judgment on us all), Young chastised the white man for raping and pillaging the Native American's land and, as the song progressed, all humanity for ignorance for what they have done to Mother Earth. With his ominous acoustic guitar bellowing as if it was in agony, Young cried out, “Who will be the one who leads the nations and protect God's creations?" Powerful stuff.
Proving to be the eternal hippie and strengthening the notion that this was certainly a thinking man's concert, Young sang about two of life's absolutes on the anti-war lament aptly titled, “Love and War”. Young crooned, “I sang for justice and hit a bad chord/But I'm still trying to sing about love and war” and crowd clapped and roared with approval.
The man some consider to be the Godfather of Grunge strapped on “Old Black” (his trusty 1953 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop) and made a racket on the explosive rockers “Down By the River,” from 1969's “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” and the unreleased rare track “Hitchhiker.”
With his Gretsch White Falcon from his Buffalo Springfield days, Young sang about Kent State as if it happened last week. Arguably the greatest Vietnam War-era protest song ever recorded, “Ohio” resonated with a raw, riveting intensity, as if Young was telling the crowd that we haven't learned anything from the days of Nixon and Vietnam.
Young got intimate singing about him and his wife having “silver hair and a little less time” on “Sign of Love,” a straightforward love ditty with a dark undercurrent and sense of uncertainty, courtesy of the jagged guitar line. He followed this up with the tender piano lullaby, “Leia,” inspired by his baby granddaughter. However, Young's most elegant and tender moment came a few numbers later with “I Believe In You,” in which he sang in a tortured, borderline falsetto while playing a grand piano.
Behind a curious looking and equally curious sounding pipe organ, Young prophesied how Mother Nature is going to pack up her bags some day and take the first silver space ship out of here on “After the Gold Rush.” In the guise of possessed preacher/demented doomsayer, Young gave the song a crowd-pleasing update, crooning, “Look at Mother Nature on the run/In the 21st century” instead of the original “In the nineteen seventies.”
In case someone in the audience didn't get their fill of musical tales about raping and pillaging, Young delivered the dissidence-drenched death march “Cortez the Killer” (sung in the perspective of the Aztecs butchered and beaten by the famed Spanish conqueror). In songs such as “Cortez the Killer,” “Peaceful Valley” and “Rumblin'” (another new song about Mother Nature suffering a bad case of acid reflux because of man), Young gave the audience plenty to ponder and feel guilty about. It seemed as if the only guilt association he didn't make was that of the mistreatment of the Na'vi people on Pandora.
His voice in fine form and never sounding better, Young ended the main set with the timeless hippie anthem “Cinnamon Girl” and came back with the catchy new tune, “Walk with Me” and the No. 1 classic, “Heart of Gold,” in which he crooned, “And I'm getting old.”
Old? Maybe.
Irrelevant? Never.
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Neil Young 2010 (nsc) (Read 5,383 times)
