Did they just add more Neil / Crazy Horse Dates?

Quote
jumpontopofmebaby
Did they just add more Neil / Crazy Horse Dates?

3 in Fresno and now 1 in Bakersfield

Crazy Horse: Nils Lofgren In, 'Poncho' Sampedro Out as Neil Young Plots New Gigs

Guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro sits out shows for first time since joining the band in 1975


Amy Harris/Invision

[www.rollingstone.com]

Logo by Geoff Moore Silver Moon Art & Design

--

Neil Young reveals details of further Crazy Horse shows

Sam Richards
April 27, 2018

Neil Young & Crazy Horse have added a third show in Fresno next week. They will now play the city’s Warnors Theatre on May 1, 2 and 3.

Tickets are available here.

They’ll also play Bakersfield’s Fox Theater on May 5 and 6. For pre-sale tickets and info, go here.

Writing on Neil Young Archives, Young confirmed that the Crazy Horse line-up for these shows will consist of Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and Nils Lofgren, but no Frank ‘Poncho’ Sampedro. “Life is an unfolding saga,” he said. “A few months back we started talking about playing some remote clubs and getting our feet wet again. Poncho is unable to join us right now but we all hope he will be back. Now Nils is with us again!”

Young added: “We are stoked to be playing all of our songs again! I have no new ones but maybe tomorrow they will come. They always do and I am so thankful for that. Come and see us as we approach our 50th year as a band. I think it will be the beginning of another beautiful chapter in our long, enriching and life changing Crazy Horse story.”

[www.uncut.co.uk]

Crazy (Horse)......read a speculative post about Bakersfield last night on Thrashers Wheat forum, but now confirmed for two shows!
Cup runneth over already for three shows in Fresno, but ya never know...

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Would be fun if the setlists for the shows were made of songs from "Toast", an album CH recorded in 2001... that Neil immediately shelved!

From Billboard magazine a couple of days ago - a brief history of Neil w/Crazy Horse:
>Neil Young & Crazy Horse Return to the Stage: A Crash Course on Their Legendary Collaboration


Neil Young and Crazy Horse just announced two shows at Warnors Theatre in Fresno, California, May 1 and 2. This will be the first time the veteran rocker and his long-running backing band will take the stage together since 2014, but this is nothing new for the Horse -- many times over, they have fitfully gone silent for years on end only to unpredictably return to the studio and stage.

Young has performed with many backing ensembles over the decades, including The Stray Gators and Promise of the Real, but Crazy Horse is typically only trotted out for special occasions -- or just on the boss' whim. The Horse, which has consisted of Frank “Pancho” Sampedro, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina since the '70s, still dispose of what 99 percent of bands would consider the absolute basics -- staying on beat, evolving your sound, maybe introducing a new chord.

But what Crazy Horse has always lacked in technical theory, they make up in sheer passion, emotion and hypnosis. By turning off their rational frontal lobes and simply playing from the heart, to witness the Horse is less like a rehearsed night out and more like beholding Godzilla lumbering through Tokyo. Frankly, the Horse is utterly fearless of “sucking” by traditional metrics, of playing in circles endlessly in search of a center, of even falling flat on their faces at times. But that unique bravery makes them achieve so much more -- they’ve influenced everyone from Drive-By Truckers and Songs: Ohia to Milk Music, but there is simply no one on Earth like them.

In honor of Crazy Horse’s triumphant return next week, here is a crash course on the band’s history, the development of their unique sound and how their legendary affiliation with Neil Young came to be.

1963-1968: Requiem for the Rockets
Crazy Horse didn’t start out with that wooly, rambunctious sound. In fact, the seed of the group was in doo-wop -- they began as a vocal group called Danny and the Memories. And if you ever want to get to the essence of who Crazy Horse was, is and will be, Danny Whitten is equally as important to the story as Young. Best to hear it from the (ahem) horse’s mouth: in Young’s idiosyncratic autobiography Waging Heavy Peace, he claimed Whitten "was better than me. I didn't see it. I was strong, and maybe I helped destroy something sacred by not seeing it.” The Memories eventually tried on psychedelic folk as The Psyrcle before eventually gigging around L.A. as The Rockets -- who Young hooked up with while playing at Whiskey a Go Go in his first band, Buffalo Springfield. Few “We should jam!” buzzed bump-ins would ever prove more fortuitous than this.

1969-1970: “Like Tequila and Salt”
Neil Young released his debut, self-titled solo album in 1969, but it wasn’t until he hooked up with the Rockets that he fully grew into his own artist. While his debut was dressed-up and overproduced with a tentative 23-year-old songwriter plopped in the middle, his first album with Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, is revelatory. The group, thankfully, never quite shed their doo-wop roots, and every one of Neil’s songs is given a swing, a kick or a call-and-response vocal. Like an oyster producing a lustrous pearl from an agitating agent, Neil’s meeting with the renamed Rockets alchemized gnarly, sloppy energy into molten beauty. Suddenly, all bets were off on traditionally correct playing, as long as you did it with passion -- the flaws were recontextualized as a feature, not a bug. Producer Jack Nitzsche perhaps said it best: "In my humble opinion, Crazy Horse is to Neil Young what The Band was to Bob Dylan. As perfect a complement as tequila and salt." No matter what routes he would go on to take with or without the Horse, their grooves were tattooed on Young’s psychology forever.

1970-1972: The Horse on Pause
Neil Young & Crazy Horse enjoyed a short victory lap for their happy union, performing some well-received gigs the winter of 1970, including an engagement with Steve Miller and Miles Davis at the Fillmore East. The group headed back into the studio briefly for After the Gold Rush, with Whitten’s health beginning to decline as he self-medicated his rheumatoid arthritis with heroin. But perceiving that Whitten may not have been up to the task, Young decided to put the Horse in the barn for the next two years, hooking up with future Young mainstays Ben Keith and a teenaged Nils Lofgren for his two greatest commercial successes, After the Gold Rush and Harvest. Despite the relative absence of the Horse while Young reaped commercial hosannas, this is still an important period for the group, since Lofgren and Keith would go on to act as crucial auxiliary Horsemen from then on out.

1971-1972: Please Take My Advice
While Young went off with the Stray Gators, Crazy Horse was able to capitalize a bit on their new success, recording two solo albums for Reprise Records. But Whitten wasn’t well. His heroin dabbling had developed into a full-bore addiction, and the others weren’t having it, kicking him out during the sessions for their album Loose. Young still gave him a chance to rehearse behind his hit solo album Harvest, but Whitten still couldn’t stay on task, lagging terribly in his guitar parts. Young understandably felt he couldn't risk disaster on this crucial tour, and sent Whitten away with $50 and a plane ticket back to Los Angeles. What happened next would haunt Neil for the rest of his life, as Whitten split and died of an overdose that evening. He explained: “I had to tell him to go back to L.A. 'It's not happening, man. You're not together enough.' He just said, 'I've got nowhere else to go, man. How am I gonna tell my friends?' And he split. That night, the coroner called me.

1973-1974: Neil Grabs the Lifeline
A crestfallen Neil, feeling responsible for Whitten’s death, did what he would continue to do for decades to deal with the pain -- he cut some music. But the music that was wrenched out of Neil as a grief response is stuff for the ages. Under obligation to undergo the tour for which Whitten had tried his best, but he could not, Young headed out on a troubled tour of stadiums and basketball arenas that would be immortalized on the infamous, long-out-of-print live album Time Fades Away. With an incoherent mishmash of his usual guys onstage -- Ben Keith, the Stray Gators, Jack Nitszche, Crosby, Stills and Nash, probably the mailman -- Young mostly took the opportunity to get smashed on tequila and complain about the sound. It was a rough time, and he sure sang about it for his next project, Tonight’s the Night, for which Young brought out Keith, Nils Lofgren and the surviving members of Crazy Horse for a blacked-out wake recorded in the back of a stereo equipment store. The darkest moment of all on Night, however, is the sudden inclusion of a Horse concert recording from 1970, “Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown” -- a Whitten-sung ode to scoring heroin.

1975-1978: Don’t Cry No Tears
After a series of personal lows for Young that resulted in some of his most evocative, lasting music, the clouds cleared around the time Young moved out to Malibu. Newly separated from actress Carrie Snodgress and with some free time after Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young aborted some studio time, he was determined to enjoy his newfound bachelorhood, even getting the Horse back together to jam. Enter Frank “Poncho” Sampedro, a madcap San Fernando Valley head-shop owner who was buddies with the group. According to Jimmy McDonough's infamous Young biography Shakey, Sampedro had become a Crazy Horse fan while he “wandered between California and Mexico, dabbling in a variety of endeavors of dubious legality that gave him great insight into the human condition.” Sampedro ended up joining the Horse for the Zuma sessions, and his risible presence is all over the album's celebratory vibe -- the material’s mostly half-written, rather chauvinistic jams about cutting the ol’ ball and chain, but it’s hard to not grant the Horse this boys’ night out after their darkest years.

1979-present: On a Twisted Road
Young recorded his final great album for some time in 1979, the acoustic-electric hybrid classic Rust Never Sleeps. From there, Young would find many new muses -- Devo, Pearl Jam, Booker T. and the MG’s -- while returning to the Horse less and less frequently. However, the increasingly rare events in which Young called up his old mates to jam sometimes resulted in their best-ever work, with the Horse developing new shades of atmosphere and nuance whether they intended to or not. 1994’s Sleeps With Angels is mostly oversold these days as Young’s reaction to Kurt Cobain’s suicide, but Crazy Horse turned in brooding, understated performances they’d never repeat, with their Neanderthal approach put on time-out in favor of hushed flutes, brushed drums and marimba. Still, Crazy Horse were rarely the main attraction, only being trotted out every decade for so-so one-offs (Broken Arrow) or ill-conceived multimedia projects (Greendale). Yet, something changed around 2012, as Young grappled with a writer’s block that had plagued him since he took a hiatus from pot-smoking and the band recorded a fun but trifling album of kindergarten standards, Americana. Their second album that year, Psychedelic Pill, wasn’t only far superior to that throat-clearing album, it may have been the greatest album Neil Young ever laid to tape with Crazy Horse. It all begins with “Driftin’ Back,” a stormy, 27-minute rant about low bit-rate sound quality and his choice of religion (“I might be a pagan,” Neil notes in his hauntingly still-boyish tenor) and ends with “Walk Like a Giant,” which features the Horse at its most feral, ending with minutes upon minutes of quaking amplifier noise -- crash, crash, crash. It will clear the room at any party and makes even the band’s sprawling guitar explorations in the ‘70s look quaint by comparison. The Horse ran free.

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Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

5/1 show will be livestreamed on Neil Young Archives

[www.neilyoungarchives.com]

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bye bye johnny


5/1 show will be livestreamed on Neil Young Archives

[www.neilyoungarchives.com]

Neil treating his fans properly - five theater shows within a week, and for those who can't attend will be able to see the first show livestreamed.
Just wish I was home on May 1st to see it on my laptop.

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Quote
Hairball
From Billboard magazine a couple of days ago - a brief history of Neil w/Crazy Horse:
>Neil Young & Crazy Horse Return to the Stage: A Crash Course on Their Legendary Collaboration

1979-present: On a Twisted Road
Young recorded his final great album for some time in 1979, the acoustic-electric hybrid classic Rust Never Sleeps. From there, Young would find many new muses -- Devo, Pearl Jam, Booker T. and the MG’s -- while returning to the Horse less and less frequently. However, the increasingly rare events in which Young called up his old mates to jam sometimes resulted in their best-ever work, with the Horse developing new shades of atmosphere and nuance whether they intended to or not. 1994’s Sleeps With Angels is mostly oversold these days as Young’s reaction to Kurt Cobain’s suicide, but Crazy Horse turned in brooding, understated performances they’d never repeat, with their Neanderthal approach put on time-out in favor of hushed flutes, brushed drums and marimba. Still, Crazy Horse were rarely the main attraction, only being trotted out every decade for so-so one-offs (Broken Arrow) or ill-conceived multimedia projects (Greendale). Yet, something changed around 2012, as Young grappled with a writer’s block that had plagued him since he took a hiatus from pot-smoking and the band recorded a fun but trifling album of kindergarten standards, Americana. Their second album that year, Psychedelic Pill, wasn’t only far superior to that throat-clearing album, it may have been the greatest album Neil Young ever laid to tape with Crazy Horse. It all begins with “Driftin’ Back,” a stormy, 27-minute rant about low bit-rate sound quality and his choice of religion (“I might be a pagan,” Neil notes in his hauntingly still-boyish tenor) and ends with “Walk Like a Giant,” which features the Horse at its most feral, ending with minutes upon minutes of quaking amplifier noise -- crash, crash, crash. It will clear the room at any party and makes even the band’s sprawling guitar explorations in the ‘70s look quaint by comparison. The Horse ran free.

This was a pretty good article only spoiled but not even mentioning 'Ragged Glory'. For me, as good a guitar album as you'll ever hear, the greatest record he ever made with Crazy Horse and a serious contender (with only 'Tonights The Night' a rival) for the best studio album of his career.

Alas, once again "Greendale" becomes the Rodney Dangerfield of NY's albums - it gets no respect. It's a great collection of songs, IMO, whether done solo or with CH. "Ragged Glory" is an excellent album along with "Sleeps With Angels". I listened to "Psychedelic Pill" and liked it, but I have listened more to Greendale, Ragged Glory and Sleeps With Angels than PP, along with rediscovering Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Tonight's The Night and Zuma. NY's music and albums work for me like with the Stones - I go back and find that which first turned me on with the albums and cuts that are like finding a forgotten treasure.

Quote
Gazza
...'Ragged Glory'. For me, as good a guitar album as you'll ever hear, the greatest record he ever made with Crazy Horse and a serious contender (with only 'Tonights The Night' a rival) for the best studio album of his career.

Yes Gazza a great album, but there are SO many!

Freedom was also intensely great and harkened back to some of the greatness after a few '80s curveballs, and even though it wasn't Crazy Horse per se, it did include Poncho Sampedro on a several tracks.
Plus, any album with El Dorado, Crime in the City, No More, and Too Far Gone on it (not to mention the electric and acoustic version of Rockin' in the Free World)...well it ranks up there with some of the best imo.
But again, there's SO many!

Anyhow, just arrived in Fresno and settled in , and on the drive up listened to some Bob Dylan Tell Tale Signs, and the Tonight's the Night cd (twice in a row!).
Even drove through Bakersfield as nod to the Stones!

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Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-05-02 01:01 by Hairball.

Lucky man. Very envious. These shows sound like a lot of chaotic fun. Enjoy.

thanks for the heads up on the dylan thread, didn't know roxy was out. are these small shows with just a little heads up? first neil show was solo trans in 1983 (great show, great record) but really got lucky and saw neil every year 2007-2014. missed 2015 due to stones tour. is he going out? too lazy to go to thrashers wheat.

No. No plans for any touring as yet. The smarter money until now was on a POTR tour being next but who knows?

Maybe a tour with CH, then a tour with POTR, then CSNY just to round it out.

Neil Young Reunites With Crazy Horse at Intimate Fresno Gig

E Street Band's Nils Lofgren joined group for a raw, moving set that harked back to the 'Tonight's the Night' era


Tom Hambleton

By Andy Greene

Even by Neil Young's fearless standards, his show at Fresno, California's Warnors Theater was a bold move. Not only did it mark his first performance with Crazy Horse in four years, but he claims they didn't rehearse prior to the gig even though this is a new lineup of the band with guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro sitting out for the first time since he joined the group in 1975. In his place is the E Street Band's Nils Lofgren, essentially making this a reunion of the 1973 Tonight's the Night band (who billed themselves as the Santa Monica Flyers) minus the late Ben Keith. Oh, yeah, and he decided to broadcast the whole thing live on his website so the whole world could see the group plug in together for the first time since the Nixon administration.

The show – followed by gigs at the same venue Wednesday and Thursday, before the band heads down south to Bakersfield this weekend – received very limited promotion, with the tickets being offered first to members of the Neil Young Archives website. Ticketing websites and the marquee above the theater billed the group as "NYCH," with the name "Neil Young" appearing nowhere in sight. The result was that only the truest of the true faithful were crammed into the historic theater when the lights dimmed and the group took the stage.

First up was "Big Time" from the group's unfairly overlooked 1996 LP Broken Arrow. It was apparent right from the the get-go that bassist Billy Talbot has absolutely no lingering symptoms from his stroke in 2014 that took him off the road before a European tour. He was grinning from ear to ear and playing just like he did in 1996 and even 1976. Also apparent was the intense focus on the face of Nils Lofgren. He's accustomed to weeks and weeks of rehearsal prior to E Street Band tours, but it was clear he was into the challenge of doing a show on the fly.

Lofgren was the obvious choice to replace Sampedro because of his long history playing alongside Neil Young and his brief stint in Crazy Horse when they cut their own LP in 1971. But he's also a virtuoso with a wildly different style than Sampedro, who has a rawer sound and plays straight from the gut. In the E Street Band, Lofgren is known for his soaring guitar solos where he sometimes commanders the spotlight and spins around like a human dreidel. Theatrics like that would never fly at a Crazy Horse show, and Lofgren played with remarkable restraint, doing did his best to mirror Young's chill groove and compliment the songs in whatever way he could. It was a remarkable performance considering the very difficult circumstances.

After the relatively obscure "Big Time," Young dipped back to 1990's Ragged Glory with "Country Home" and then all the way to 1976's Zuma with "Don't Cry No Tears." At times he seemed a little distracted and he repeatedly signaled to crew members to make adjustments to the mix and the lights. The Horse were also uncharacteristically mellow. Poncho was always the most animated member and Young fed off his energy and boundless enthusiasm. Without him they briefly sounded like a different, gentler band, one a little less joyful. But then they launched into "Winterlong" and once Young locked voices with Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina on the chorus they sounded like the Crazy Horse of old.

Next, Lofgren walked over to the piano for the Tonight's The Night gem "World on a String" and the Neil fanatics pressed up against the stage nearly wept with joy. Who would have ever guessed the surviving members of the Santa Monica Flyers would play something like that ever again? The most obscure tune of the night, "Scattered (Let's Think About Livin')" from Broken Arrow followed, proving that Lofgren really did his homework in the short run leading up to the show. The energy level in the theater then kicked into a whole new gear with a wild, frenetic "F*ckin' Up," though it was hard to not miss the playful kicks to Young's ass that Poncho used to deliver during that one.

Young strapped on an acoustic guitar for a mini set that included "Too Far Gone" and "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" before sending the place into hysterics with an explosive "Cinnamon Girl" and a slow, haunting "Cortez the Killer." The evening wrapped up with "Walk On," "Like a Hurricane" (with Lofgren taking Sampedro's standard place behind the organ), "Mansion on the Hill" and a return to the Santa Monica Flyers days with "Roll Another Number (for the Road)."

Not that anybody cared, but the lack of rehearsal was apparent a few times throughout the night. Talbot seemed to miss a few changes and forgot to come in on background vocals so many times that Young once literally walked over to his mic and began singing them for him. But such moments are part of the beauty of Crazy Horse. The world is full of musicians that can play "Cinnamon Girl" with absolute precision. There's nobody, however, that can play it like Crazy Horse, even when they screw up. That's why Young returns to them time and time again, even though it would be a far better for his financial situation if he were to play instead with CSNY or merely break out his his greatest hits with anonymous pros.

As always, the future of Neil Young and Crazy Horse is unclear. This week-long run of California theater shows might pave the way for a world tour in 2019. The band also might never play again. Poncho could also come back and these gigs will just be a weird detour. (His absence has yet to be explained.) It's doubtful that even Young has any idea where this is going. But if opening night was any indication, five decades after they first played with him, Crazy Horse are ready to follow him anywhere he wants to go.

Set List

"Big Time"
"Country Home"
"Don't Cry No Tears"
"Winterlong"
"World on a String"
"Scattered (Let's Think About Livin')"
"F*ckin' Up"
"Too Far Gone"
"Only Love Can Break Your Heart"
"Cinnamon Girl"
"Cortez the Killer"
"Walk On"
"Like a Hurricane"
"Mansion on the Hill"
"Roll Another Number (for the Road)"

[www.rollingstone.com]

[youtu.be]
Cortez The Killer, Fresno May 1st '18

WoW! That's a dream set-list. I'd kill to be at that show.

OK...that was fantastic! Driving up here I began thinking, hmmm...rehearsals? What kind of curveball of a show can this be? Will it just be all extended jams? Or perhaps tunes that are so obscure even diehards might not be familiar with ha? Maybe some old tunes he'd written that were never recorded? Then I thought again...maybe Tonight's the Night in it's entirety, and/or a full blown set of his all time greatest? A bit at a loss for words here, but can't imagine there were no rehearsals...it was that strong of a show. And if these shows really had no rehearsals , how much better can it get? From the 5th row right center aisle, I was near tears during World on a String and F*cking up. Wiped a tear off my cheek after Too Far Gone and Only Love Can Break You're Heart. Another tear of joy with Cinnamon Girl. Cortes the Killer was trance-like...hypnotic...tears gushing in my head. Walk On - more tears forming and on the brink of rolling. Like a Hurricane...Neil's wailing squealing guitar was like a heavy squall...I was literally getting blown away, and eyes welled up like a flooded prairie. Mansion on the Hill with more extended guitars a blazing, and finally Roll Another Number...felt like a stoned teenager again with tears of laughter and happiness! Looking forward to tonight with a row R center (thanks to my new friend daspyknows!), and again tomorrow with a front row seat (!!!), and I'm assuming there might be a few setlist changes (as Neil is known to do) with a different tune here or there. And since I'll be driving back home through Bakersfield which is the half way point to my destination, temptation might force me to make a layover for the weekend for those final two shows. The week of the Horse!!! But what will I tell my wife!!!?


*Took a few quick pics, and will post some later.

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Here's a link to last nights webcast, it is f'ing AMAZING!

[drive.google.com]

From the Fresno Bee newspaper:
Neil

Neil Young unleashes the Horse in Fresno. It was ragged, and it was glorious.

By Marek Warszawski
May 02, 2018 08:08 AM

Updated 3 hours 59 minutes ago

Neil Young fans know to always expect the unexpected. It's encoded into his musical DNA.

After Young rose to fame in the late 1960s singing folksy acoustic songs, he suddenly swerved to loud and abrasive. He's tried on so many guises, from techno to country to blues to rockabilly, that his own record company sued him for making albums that didn't sound like Neil Young. He's scrapped entire projects without warning and departed tours leaving only a note.

So two weeks ago, when Young made the surprising announcement he and classic backing band Crazy Horse were reconvening in Fresno for three "unrehearsed" shows May 1-3 at Warnors Theater, their first time on stage together since 2014, the air was thick with mystery.

Would we be getting a standard Neil Young & Crazy Horse setlist? Would the band play the entire 1975 album "Tonight's the Night," a live version of which was released last week? Or, since Young promised no rehearsals, would it be four guys standing on stage flubbing chords and breaks?

"Knowing what we know about him, we might be paying for the soundcheck," said former Bee photographer Kurt Hegre, who made the drive from Sacramento for Tuesday night's show. "I'd be all right with that, actually."

From the time Young strode onto the stage and played the opening notes to "Big Time," it was clear these old warhorses don't need no stinkin' rehearsals. "I'm still living in the dream we had," Young sang in his signature falsetto. "For me it's not over."

Even at age 72, clearly not.

What sets Crazy Horse apart from the rest of Young's musical accomplices? It's Ralph Molina's plodding, spacious manner of drumming. It's the way Billy Talbot's bass sounds like it's bleeding over from the next room. The rhythm guitar and keyboard underpinnings of Nils Lofgren, filling in for Frank "Poncho" Sampedro, provide the bedrock that allow Young's signature solos to venture into the sonic cosmos.

From his expressions and mannerisms, Young was happy to be back in the saddle with "the Horse" and especially Lofgren, a part-time member whose association with Young goes back nearly five decades. Almost right away the two played facing each other with big grins, locked in a tight formation.

Young also seemed happy to return for just his third Fresno concert appearance, according to the website sugarmtn.org. He was last here in July 2006, at Save Mart Center, with CSNY. The first time was an October 1988 show at Warnors with backing band The Bluenotes.

Being back on stage at the 90-year-old venue, with its baroque decor and warm acoustics, played a major role in that.

"These places are unbelievably great," Young said between songs. "We're lucky they're still here."

"Maybe we should play this theater all the time," he added, much to the appreciation of the locals who helped fill every red felt seat.


The one-hour, 45-minute set spanned nearly Young's entire catalog with Crazy Horse. Young played mostly on "Old Black," his trademark 1953 Les Paul Goldtop, but also swapped out for a Fender Stratocaster and the Gretsch White Falcon he's had since his days with Buffalo Springfield. Two songs featured Young's acoustic guitar.

Following a crowd-pleasing rendition of "Cinnamon Girl," one of Young's most recognizable tunes with its fuzzy, catchy riff, the lights in the theater dimmed as the band loped into the distinctive intro of "Cortez the Killer." Which is exactly the pace Young wanted. At one point he even decelerated the tempo by raising a hand over his head and bringing it down to shoulder height.

What resulted was the slowest, spookiest version of "Cortez the Killer" I've ever heard and definitely the evening's highlight. From this soft nest of chords and drums, Young's aching, note-bending solos soared to the stratosphere. That song alone was worth the $69.50 for a balcony seat, and even the stupid $10 service fee.

There were indications this wasn't a polished performance. At one point Young didn't like the sound his Stratocaster was making and handed it back to his guitar tech with a shake of his head. After "Fu@#in' Up," which featured some of Young's wildest playing, he told the crowd "I almost forgot the words." Young then proceeded to sit down on the stage and re-tie his shoe.

When it came to the encore, I was hoping for at least one more song. (No "Keep On Rockin' in the Free World," what?) And taking up considerable room on the stage was a baby grand piano no one bothered to play. (Lofgren did spend a couple songs behind an upright.) Perhaps Young is saving them for the two remaining shows.

Of course, those are quibbles. Everyone I talked to sounded thrilled and appreciative just to be there and that Young chose Fresno to unleash the Horse.

"It's like Bob Dylan," Julie Hagen of Fresno said. "You don't want to miss him because you don't know how many more times you'll get to see him."

Father Time eventually catches up with all of us. But as Young proved Tuesday night, he hasn't lost a step.

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Quote
Mr.D
Here's a link to last nights webcast, it is f'ing AMAZING!

[drive.google.com]

It looks like it has been taken down.

On any case, it's on YouTube now:

Neil Young Webcast

Quote
kowalski

Quote
Mr.D
Here's a link to last nights webcast, it is f'ing AMAZING!

[drive.google.com]

Thanks a lot...

Watching the video made me think about how you don't need an elaborate stage set, dancers on stage or a host of other distractions, to make great music. Maybe the Stones should look at doing shows this way and let the songs/music speak for itself. Sometimes simple is best.

On the subject of Neil's periods of "lazy song-writing" I couldn't agree more. I recently listened to On The Beach and Zuma. To call some of these songs "filler" would be too kind. There's some real shite in there. I could write better lyrics than some of that crap. Ragged Glory and some of his early material does it for me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-05-03 18:53 by Bungo.

5/2 Setlist

1. Big Time
2. Country Home
3. Don't Cry No Tears
4. Winterlong
5. World On A String
6. Scattered (Let's Think About Livin')
7. F*!#in' Up
8. Too Far Gone
9. Only Love Can Break Your Heart
10. Cinnamon Girl
11. Cortez The Killer
12. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
13. Mansion On The Hill
14. Like A Hurricane
---
15. The Losing End

[www.sugarmtn.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-05-03 18:27 by bye bye johnny.