An Evening With Neil Young as 'Human Highway' Goes Nationwide! Global Next?!

The Ultimate Cult Classic Double Feature:
Neil Young's Human Highway & Rust Never Sleeps

Neil Young's cult classic film Human Highway will be released to theatres on February 29th.

Not only that, but it will be a double feature with the film Rust Never Sleeps and a Q&A with Neil Young and Human Highway cast members Charlotte Stewart, Russ Tamblyn and Devo's Gerald Casale conducted by Cameron Crowe.

An Evening With Neil Young

Date: Monday, February 29
Time: 7:30 p.m. ET/ 6:30 p.m. CT/ 5:30 p.m. MT/ (Playback) 7:30 p.m. PT, 7:30 p.m. HI, AK (local time)
Run Time: 3 hours 30 minutes (approximate)
Ticketing: Tickets will be available to the general public Friday, January 15.

With multiple GRAMMYs®, Juno Awards and many other notable accolades earned during his illustrious career, Neil Young is one of the most influential musicians of the generation. The New York Times described "Rust Never Sleeps" as offering "some of [Young's] strongest songs, both new and old, in performances as fine or finer than those on his recent, partly live record album of the same title," and said "the intensity of the singing and playing of Crazy Horse, Mr. Young's longtime partners for electric-rock projects, is as moving as rock can offer."

John Rubey, Fathom Events CEO, said, "We are proud to present 'An Evening With Neil Young' to fans across the nation. Music lovers will get a unique opportunity to experience over three-and-a-half hours of landmark rock n' roll entertainment from one of music's most beloved singer-songwriters."

"Neil Young is a singular talent and an icon of American popular music, and we are proud and honored to support this event, knowing full well how much our members will enjoy it," said Robert Love, editor in chief of AARP The Magazine. "I have many fond memories of seeing Neil and Crazy Horse at the Fillmore East in New York City, solo at Carnegie Hall, and have followed his career since Buffalo Springfield."

More details here.


"When Love and Fate Collide"
Human Highway - Directors Bernard Shakey & Dean Stockwell (1982)
Here's the film trailer for Human Highway.

Human Highway (Director's Cut) Trailer from Shakey Pictures on Vimeo.

As we blogged in 2014, Neil Young's film Human Highway had the director's cut version première at Toronto International Film Festival | TIFF.net in September. "Neil Young's mind-bending 1982 post-apocalyptic musical comedy, in which the rock legend writes, directs and stars alongside an eclectic and eccentric cast including Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper and Devo."



From rollingstone.com by Andy Greene:

"We were kind of repulsed by the whole experience," Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh told Rolling Stone in 2010. "I thought Dennis Hopper was retarded when we met. He couldn't say his lines. He couldn't speak a sentence. He just ignored every direction he got. He was a short-order cook in the movie and he was playing with a knife and he ended up cutting Sally Kirkland really bad. She ended up suing Neil Young."

Mothersbaugh says the film has grown on him over the years. "At the time, we discounted it, but 10 years ago, I went to some arts cinema and saw it again," he said. "I liked it more in retrospect. Devo actually has some of the best parts of the movie. It's a truly weird piece of history."

The 1982 film Human Highway by Neil Young portrays the Earth's last day following a nuclear holocaust. Original movie posters referred to it as a "nuclear comedy" and filming began soon after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and continued over four years with Young spending $3,000,000 of his own money on production (source).

The film is considered a cult classic somewhat similar to the legendary Journey Through the Past and has been described as "if David Lynch directed "The Wizard of Oz on acid."

"It's so bad, it's going to be huge" proudly declared the poster .



From Amazon review by Tom Keogh:

Neil Young's 1982 comic mess of a feature left many faithful fans baffled and was otherwise unappreciated at the time of its release. But with the benefit of hindsight and shifts in pop culture in the last couple of decades, much of Human Highway now feels warm and funny where it once looked disastrously undisciplined.

DEVO Gets Nuked
The plot revolves around a small gas station-diner in a fictional town next to a nuclear power plant. A choreographed musical dream sequence takes place as the nuclear blast occurs. At the destroyed gas station-diner post nuclear holocaust Booji Boy (DEVO's Mark Mothersbaugh) is a lone survivor.

At the nuclear power plant, trash collectors (members of DEVO) reveal that radioactive waste is routinely mishandled and dumped at the nearby town of Linear Valley. They sing a remake of "Worried Man Blues" while loading waste barrels on an old truck. There's a leak at the power plant and "Barrel go boom," as the power plant worker so succinctly puts it. A character's (Otto) recent death is by radiation poisoning.

DEVO and Neil Young
A noted sequence in the film features the band DEVO (named after "de-evolution") and a bizarre rendition of "Hey, Hey, My, My". In a particularly ironic manner, DEVO covers Bob Dylan's "Blowin' In the Wind" just before Booji Boy says:

I don't know what's going on in the world these days.

It seems that everybody's just got everything turned around.

People don't seem to care about their fellow man. They're all going for that big ice-cream cone in the sky! They haven't figured out what happens when your eyes get bigger then your belly. Like an ostrich who eats his pizza with his head stuck in the sand. If they can't see it, it isn't there.

And you know, it really *does* take a worried man!

Neil Young and Dennis Hopper
On the set of Human Highway, 1st July 1978 (c) Caterine MILLENNIUM
More on Neil Young Films.

Also, see Human Highway on Amazon.

Neil Young as "Lionel"
Thrasher's Wheat is pleased to bring our readers an exclusive Q&A session with a member of Neil Young's Shakey Pictures crew who worked on the research, editing and meticulous restoration under the supervision of Director Bernard Shakey.

Neil Young's 1982 post-apocalyptic musical comedy, has long been out of circulation and is regarded as a cult classic with its mythical history of production mayhem, post-production chaos and forgotten legacy.

Now, 32 years after Human Highways' first screening, Bernard Shakey's crew is ready to answer a few questions.



Thrasher's Wheat - The film Human Highway is considered to be a cult classic somewhat similar to the legendary Journey Through the Past and has been described as "if David Lynch directed "The Wizard of Oz on acid." What surprised you going back to the footage shot back in late 70's?

Shakey Pictures - Maybe not so much surprising, but very noticeable was how well shot the film was under the direction of David Myers.

[ed - David Myers (1914–2004) was the cinematographer for the film Woodstock and Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz among many other concert documentaries.]

TW - So what prompted the desire to produce a director's cut version of Human Highway?

SP - The version that was first screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival in 1982 really could be considered the Director’s Cut. Time went on and various edits of the film had their moment in the sun, but Mr Shakey still held onto his original vision. Along with Producer L.A Johnson, he dispatched the Shakey Pictures crew to locate, catalog and collect for assembly all the original footage that had been cut out of Human Highway post- Mill Valley. It was a lengthy undertaking.



TW - The original release of Human Highway was 88 minutes. The director's cut version is 80 minutes. Usually these director's cut versions go to longer side not shorter. Is this tweaking/ shortening up longer scenes or scenes removed?

SP - That is correct. Once the 1982 Director’s Cut was reassembled, Bernard oversaw further refinements to the story. An astute viewer will note that while the running time of the movie is shorter than that on VHS, there are actually some new elements in the final presentation that will be screened at TIFF.

TW - Was this filmed in 35mm?

SP - Human Highway was shot in both 35mm and in 16mm film.

TW - What are we looking at now? Film edited on high resolution digital video?

SP - The Shakey Pictures team found and transferred the oiginal negatives of the film footage, which then underwent extensive restoration and cleaning, frame by frame. Editing was in high resolution digital.



TW - What is the sound format resolution compared to original?

SP - The sound quality is much improved over the original. The same attention to detail that was given to picture was also given to audio on this project.

The film’s original master 16 track analog tapes were transferred at 24 bit/ 192kHz, as well as the original dialog and music reels.

The new mix of Human Highway is now presented in 5.1 surround as well as in stereo.

TW - What are the release format plans? Blu-ray?

SP - After Human Highway’s theatrical run, it would be fair to say that you can expect to to see Blu-ray and DVD releases.



TW - We know folks would love to hear the story of Woody, the wooden Indian and his mates. Were they really burned in the desert? Is Woody, the wooden Indian, we've seen recently onstage with Neil the same? A survivor?

SP - Yes, that is indeed Woody in the film. He has some scenes in the garage at Otto’s Corner. I don’t know his back story or what stock he came from, but do know that Woody embodies the strong silent type. That is well depicted in Human Highway.



TW - Will there be a director's cut video release with "special features"? Like a vinyl album soundtrack, a booklet, deleted scenes, 'making of' documentaries, etc?

SP - It’s a bit too early to reveal what comes next out of the Shakey Pictures archives in relation to Human Highway, but there is definitely some stuff in the vaults.



Thanks Shakey Pictures!

Human Highway (Director's Cut) Clip 1 from Shakey Pictures on Vimeo.

Human Highway (Director's Cut) Clip 2 from Shakey Pictures on Vimeo.

More at Shakey Pictures - Human Highway.

I come down from the misty mountain
I got lost on the human highway
Take my head refreshing fountain
Take my eyes from what they've seen.
Take my head and change my mind
How could people get so unkind?
~~Neil Young

Rare Human Highway Film Poster
(Click photo to enlarge)

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