Neil Young News: Wellington, New Zealand - Neil Young & Crazy Horse Concert Reviews

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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Wellington, New Zealand - Neil Young & Crazy Horse Concert Reviews - Mar 19, 2013

Alchemy Tour
Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Just back from epic Neil Young & Crazy Horse concert tonight. 2hrs 45mins of great rock'n'roll - introduced by NZ national anthem!
— Tim Jones (@timjonesbooks) March 19, 2013

Neil Young and Crazy Horse - one of the best concerts I've ever been too. Just short of three hours.
— Mike Brown (@maupuia) March 19, 2013

@neilyoung your Wellington NZ gig rocked. Expectations met big time. Rock and Roll.....you know the rest
— Hamish Girvan (@girvana) March 19, 2013

From Gig Review: Neil Young & Crazy Horse (March 19, Wgtn) by Simon Sweetman:

The real salt and grit is when Neil is strangling that guitar, arguing for it to spill the beans, to tell its truth/to yell his truth. He’s like the standover man of the electric guitar; he wrestles and wrangles, he tilts and whirls, he angles back with a cartoon walk one minute then next thing it appears he’s been using his guitar to catch a fish all the while. Hendrix may well have stood at the edge of the mountain and chopped it down with the edge of his hand. But you get the feeling, now, that he was instructed to do that so that Neil Young could tunnel out from the rubble.

Every guitar solo is different, every guitar solo is sacred. Neil Young’s guitar solos when he’s riding with the horse are not toilet-break material, unless you couldn’t make it the whole way to the show in one go because your knuckles were skinned from all the walking. Neil Young’s guitar solos when he’s riding with the horse are a surprise every time – to him and to us. He plays them as if he’s hearing them for the first time. That’s the real (genuine) treat. His severe case of guitar-face so genuine; he so thoroughly means this shit. He’ll fight for it too. His guitar carries the scars to show for it. He’s so wrapped up in this and his body language suggests the power runs through the lead and on through him before it gets to the guitar’s pickup.

So last night was amazing. Neil Young was peeerfect.
—Astrea (@Woah_Astrea) March 19, 2013

Nearly three hours of rockin good times from Neil Young & Crazy Horse in Welly tonight. Total legend show. #rocknrollwillneverdie
— David Ridler (@davidridler) March 19, 2013

@blogonthetracks review for tomorrow: the set list, follow by "Neil Young is a fucking legend. That is all". Maybe add "value for money"
— Emma Harrison (@kiri_te_karnage) March 19, 2013

Neil Young & Crazy Horse were amazing last night. Played for two hours forty! Setlist was great too.
— Andrew Voerman (@andrewvoerman) March 19, 2013

Neil Young may look 107 years old, but his voice sounds 27. Immaculate concert.
— Paul (@WeAreAllCylons) March 19, 2013

Whoever set the fire under neil young, it's still going #atwellingtongig
— richard langston (@richlangston2) March 19, 2013

Dad just called from Neil Young. Didn’t say a word, just held up his phone. Legend.
— Duncan Heal (@duncn) March 19, 2013

Just had to quickly pop on Twitter to let you all know how amazing Neil Young is. Particularly for such an old bugger. He's still got it.
— Ashleigh Lambert (@ashtron) March 19, 2013

Filling up for Neil Young and Crazy Horse. #cantbeatwgtnonagoodday #goodtimeswgtn twitter.com/shaw_alistair/…
— Alistair Shaw (@shaw_alistair) March 19, 2013

Neil Young & Crazy Horse will be performing tonight at TSB Bank Arena, Wellington, New Zealand.

Got a report? Drop us a comment below.

Check Sugar Mountain for setlist updates and Chronological Grid, Recording Summary, Statistics and Extras.

Also, see Neil Young & Crazy Horse 2013 Concert Tour Reviews and the right, middle sidebar for continuous real time RSS feed updates.

Don't Be Denied!

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16 Comments:

At 3/19/2013 11:07:00 AM, Anonymous said...: I can smell the horse from Texas. Yee Hawwwwww!!!!!! Europe, you must be pissing your pants about now. Would love to come spend the summer with you!! Bring it back home boys!! We'll be waiting for you this fall.
At 3/19/2013 11:42:00 AM, Soldier Steve said...: Found Setlist From Off The Track Review. Love And Only Love~Powderfinger~Born In Ontario~Walk Like A Giant~Hole In The Sky~Heart Of Gold~Twisted Road~Singer Without A Song~Ramada Inn~Cinnamon Girl~ LikE A Hurricane~Sedan Delivery~Hey Hey,My My~Opera Star~Fuckin'Up
At 3/19/2013 04:45:00 PM, Anonymous said...: Sucked. Really, really sucked. The crowd just stood their awkwardly while they waited for songs they knew and could sing along to. About 10% of the concert was lyrics, 90% was guitar solos, and Neil messing around with Guitar effects. You can see that sort of thing any night of the week in any old rock joint.

When he finally bought out his acoustic and played Heart of Gold the crowd went wild, but that was the shortest song in the set. Yes, the only song the crowd really reacted to he cut short.

While people who are all about guitar shredding may well have enjoyed the show, all of those who were there to sing along to some old classics were sorely disappointed.

Neil Young committed that most basic and common of rock star errors; forgetting that he's there to play what we paid to hear.
At 3/19/2013 05:18:00 PM, neilhead said...: Neil's gig at Rod Laver was amazing. The band tore the roof off the Arena.

The Drones are the best support band I've ever witnessed. Such a powerful band. The greatest Aussie band going around.

30 minutes after the drones packed up and left the lights went down the roadies did their thing with the huge microphone and speaker stacks. Powderfinger was a surprising opener but was good to hear something different open the show. Such a killer song still. Love to Burn was awesome although the first chorus featured mistakes from all band members. Crazy Horse stuffed up their bit and Neil sang the chorus wrong but it didn't matter because it was loud and ferocious. I love the lyrics in that tune. Walk like a giant was insane. My gf who was seeing her first Neil show couldn't take it and had her hands over her ears. I had a smile from ear to ear. The acoustic section was a drag I got to say and went on a bit too long. Ramada Inn was a guitar-orgasm for 17 minutes. It was the highlight of the night. Already a classic- Neil and Poncho left nothing on the stage for this one. The run of Cortez the Killer, Prisoners of rock n roll, welfare mothers, sedan delivery and Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) was just the best 40 minutes of music I have ever witnessed.

Glad to say I knew all the words to Sedan Delivery and sang them loud as hell. Encores included a furious Mr Soul with an awesome charged up ending and Roll another number completed what was a memorable night!

Worth every cent.
At 3/19/2013 05:24:00 PM, Thrasher Wheat said...: @ 04:45:00 PM - sorry.

The tweets we posted above were selected randomly from the 100% positive sampling from Wellington.

The press & blog reviews of Wellington are 100% positive.

All of our ThrashersWheatNeverSleeps | Facebook comments are positive.

"Neil Young committed that most basic and common of rock star errors; forgetting that he's there to play what we paid to hear."

But what if Neil Young is not a "rock star" and therefore didn't commit an error?
At 3/19/2013 05:35:00 PM, Anonymous said...: @ 04:45:00 PM. Geez, you seem to have mistaken Neil Young and Crazy Horse for a jukebox or something. Put in your quarters and you can play anything you please. You want him to be a monkey on a stick or something. How sad. I hope your seats sucked so the real fans could sit closer. Yeah, an "extended" version of Heart of Gold would have been just swell!! And I'm getting old......
At 3/19/2013 06:13:00 PM, SD said...: "Neil Young committed that most basic and common of rock star errors; forgetting that he's there to play what we paid to hear."

HAHA oh my god, I'm dying here. I literally can't comprehend that a person might have actually written that and potentially believed it to be true.

I take solace in the knowledge that it's just a troll who didn't go to the show, because it's literally the EXACT SAME comment you get every show. They don't even bother to change it up, it's almost word for word: people were just standing there; people weren't singing along; people were upset they didn't hear [insert song]; too many guitar solos; played for themselves not for us.

I'm glad that the majority of the people here can just laugh at these comments for the joke they are, instead of taking them seriously.
At 3/19/2013 06:58:00 PM, Phill said...: "Neil Young committed that most basic and common of rock star errors; forgetting that he's there to play what we paid to hear."

He's not your employee Anon.

Damn, i thought we'd heard the last of The Doubters. That's democracy I guess.

Anonymous Doubter at 4:45; when I saw NYCH in Adelaide they played EXACTLY what I paid to hear.
At 3/19/2013 09:42:00 PM, The Zuma Band said...: It's all one troll.

I'm convinced the same "anonymous" is posting this repetitive and laughably ignorant complaint-

"Neil Young committed that most basic and common of rock star errors; forgetting that he's there to play what we paid to hear."

When I first skimmed this I thought it was an ironic mockery of the attitude that gets way more consideration than it warrants. The point is, you pay to hear what NY sing and share with you. Be grateful...... don't piss in the wind because you're only wetting yourself.
At 3/20/2013 03:52:00 AM, Tim NZ said...: Wow- took me 24 hours to get home after the Wellington gig. Saw the Horse at Voodoo in New Orleans last October and in many ways this was even better. Born in Ontario slowed down somewhat and maybe a bit.........sombre if that's the right word. New songs (they didn't do Singer w/out a song in NO) were great- 2 primers for the 2013 Horse album maybe???- and the run of classics at the end even better than 4 months ago. And the final, 20-odd minutes of F#@kin' Up was a sublime way to finish things. From where I was, no-one wanted the set to end. About the only (very small) downer was knowing about last week's Melbourne gig and hoping against hope for Dangerbird. Oh well, it'll be on the live Alchemy film/album right?!
At 3/20/2013 04:14:00 AM, TonyACT said...: Hey Zuma - I agree that most of the comments from 'anonymous' are the work of one or two internet trolls.

Of course, they have done their job and got us all up in arms in defense of Neil and the boys.
At 3/20/2013 05:18:00 AM, Anonymous said...: @ 04:45:00 PM - WTF??

Were you at the same concert? I struggle to understand how anyone could have gone away from that disappointed. No accounting for taste, or however it goes.

Anyhoo, what a night. The drones are actually a fucken good live band, if we need reminding. Set things up bloody well, such power.

Neil came on a little annoyed about something I reckon, or maybe just a little tired? But he did comment a little negatively on the sound before Ontario, about a buzz or hum and we all know how much he hates that. It became a bit of a theme for the night and a couple of times later during Hurricane he was obviously searching for some sort of buzz out of the tweeds. Not sure how you do that during Hurricane, but anyway.

So in all honesty, the first few songs until ramada inn, were a little flat. Don’t get me wrong; still nice versions and well serviced by the horse (tighter than ever?), but his annoyance came through in a particularly bludgeoning, brutal Powerfinger, not really with the deft touches it can have. But an interesting take.

The slow songs, new & old, were decent, solid run-throughs, but when the horse came back for Ramada inn, they were like a different band. RI contained maybe the best solos ive ever seen/heard NY play and it was obvious from then on that we were seeing something special.

Suddenly the Horse was on fire with the playing, and all smiles between songs, and Neil was take this piss out of Ponchos playing style. They changed up the setlist a little, with Hurricane appearing earlier than most previous gigs. But the sequence of last 4 songs was something special as the Horse went up another notch again. Sedan Delivery was super tight, and had a call & response thing at the end; HHMM was the “heaviest” song of the night and this version was a superb update of the Rust Never Sleeps/Weld duo.

Its one of the remarkable things about the Horse and maybe why this tour is up there with their best ever – they can be playing pretty basic riffs at times, lets be honest, but always find room to go somewhere different and new, and produce these incredibly nuanced versions of songs we’ve heard many times.

Opera Star was next as the 1st encore. They gave the song a new lease on life, great harmonies…Last up was Fuckin up. A favourite, and they more than justified that for me tonight. The power in those riffs was something else, but the ending was mental! Poncho and Neil broke it down into an extended call and response about (wait for it) Fuckin up, that had Neil literally moaning into to the microphone, and telling an particular audience member they were a fuck-up, at different points. Competley crazy, but somehow tied the whole night together perfectly.

For the record, there were some mid-50s couples near me right at the front who didn’t really know much Neil, but though Leonard Cohen was great. I thought they would be gone after 10mins, but they absolutely loved it. Rockin the whole time and couldn’t stop saying how great it was. Anyway, no accounting for taste I guess.
At 3/20/2013 02:26:00 PM, Proud Doubter said...: They may have attended the show. They didnt like it much. So what. Stop falling into the trap. The internets is a aggrivating place to visit. Theres always some 37 yr old nerd in his basement getting yelled at by Mom for not taking out the trash a day early. Hes got too much time on his hands and lives for your outraged response to his provacation. I have a certain Anon in mind, not this one though. People have a right to disagree with your opinion and if the post is really a fraud the better you not respond at all. Be more watershed like. This is my new resolve.
At 3/20/2013 09:36:00 PM, The Zuma Band said...: Yeah, I agree. I just wanted to get in the "It's all one troll" line.

I also kind of like the image of NY & Crazy Horse as a band of ruffian pirates swaggering into town and ripping everyone off by performing work not "in the style of Neil Young," as per David Geffen. That's why Ralph flies the pirate flag!
At 3/20/2013 11:39:00 PM, Dan1 said...: "We don't wanna be watered down
Takin' orders from record company clowns"
At 3/25/2013 09:42:00 PM, Anonymous said...: Anyone know of any bootleg recordings of the Wlelington show knocking about?