UPDATED: "Thrasher" Played @ Light Up The Blues 4th Annual Concert w/ Stephen Stills, Neil Young + Others

Neil Young performing "Thrasher" at the 4th Annual Light Up The Blues benefit concert for Autism Speaks at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles, CA on Saturday, May 21, 2016. (thanks Sweet Joni in Malibu Heaven!)

UPDATE - SETLIST (via Sugar Mountain)

1. Heart Of Gold (acoustic guitar)
2. Thrasher (12 string acoustic guitar)
3. Out On The Weekend (acoustic guitar)
4. Human Highway (acoustic guitar; accompanied by Stephen Stills)
5. Mr. Soul (electric guitar; accompanied by Stephen Stills and members of The Rides)
6. For What It's Worth (Stills on lead vocals, Neil on electric guitar; accompanied by Stephen Stills and members of The Rides)
7. Rockin' In The Free World (electric guitar; accompanied by Stephen Stills and and other guests)

From an email we received from Tamara:

Hi Thrasher,

That set list from last night is correct! My husband and I attended. I’m going to send you photos my husband took because they are in an email and i don’t know how to post them from the way that he sent them to me (sorry!)

So here are my thoughts from last night’s concert:

Neil ’s set made the night, obviously.

My first thought when i heard the first chords to “Thrasher” in that setting was also “OMG!”

While Neil is only a year younger than Stephen, he seems half his age.

You never know what Neil is going to show up but it was a funny, chatty one. There was a lot of instrument wrangling between his songs and banter with the audience. After he finished “Thrasher” he said something about it being awhile since he’s played that one and thought he was going to forget the lines, to which he added “that could have a career ender!”

Autism Speaks is no doubt a worthy cause but in my opinion the evening was ridiculously disorganized. Much of it could have been prevented by having a simple program that gave some insight to the musical acts and the cause. It likely would have gone a long way to quiet rowdy people in the audience who might have had more patience with the labored timing between the short music sets, which was filled with the emcee Jack Black and various actors and comedians (Andy Dick, Cristina Applegate, Judd Apatow.)

Three autistic performers took the stage during the course of the evening. But it seemed a lot of impatient people around us (all waiting for NEIL) had no idea the kids performing were autistic so they were even more impatient and rude. One loud jackass a few rows behind us who kept screaming obscenities and “BRING OUT NEIL” was removed from the auditorium during the intermission, thankfully. The show was four hours long, with a 20 minute intermission. After the intermission there was an auction by the emcee and celebrities (two people paid $5k each for harmonicas used by Neil Young - a man in the balcony and Judd Apatow - big price to pay for a harmonica containing Neils DNA!) Then followed by a lengthy speech by the director of Autism Speaks. The crowd around us was restless (and did i mention rude?) All of this followed Stills and his wife kicking off the start of the night with a very long-winded thanking of all their sponsors, by name. Again, much of this could and should have been covered and explained in a program handed out to attendees (yes programs are expensive to print up, but i think they could find a sponsor willing to get their name on a program as well.)

Back to the music: War on Drugs, Jacob Dylan and the others had two-song sets. Stephen Stills and his band, the Rides, played 4 or 5 songs (interestingly - Stills did make a comment in passing at one point about ‘losing all my bandmates’ - when he was introducing his new collaborators.)

Perhaps most interesting to me was that while Stills was hosting, Neil was the man draw, closing act, and commanding presence. And he always brings it! Heart of Gold, Thrashers, Out on the Weekend were all acoustic. He was joined by Stephen and Chris Stills on Human Highway, and then went electric for Mr. Soul with Stills and the Rides. Stills sang on “For What It’s Worth” (again - the contrast between Neil’s vocals and Stephen’s - is remarkable). And everyone left in the building who had been on stage at one time or another came out for “Rockin’ in the Free World.”

Feel free to use any of this if you’d like on Thrasher’s Wheat! My name is Tamara

PS: Can you believe i just found your email in my junk folder asking about Neil’s LP listening party for EARTH. Geesh, i’m sorry as that was two weeks ago! I’ll respond separately to that but have to get out of the house right now for an appt. happy sunday!

Photos by Sister Terri! Thanks.


Last song of Neil Young set. "Rockin' in the Free World" from Light Up The Blues concert at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, CA, May 21, 2016. With Stephen Stills , Kenny Wayne Shepard and many more.

Encore photo by Tamara

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Stephen Stills & Neil Young
Light Up The Blues 3rd Annual Concert (2015)
Photo by Jeff Allen
(Click photo to enlarge)
Tonight, Stephen Stills' 4th Annual Light Up The Blues concert to benefit autism will be held at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, California.

Neil Young, The Rides (featuring Stephen Stills, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and Barry Goldberg), Jakob Dylan, The War On Drugs, Nikka Costa, Chris Stills and emcee Jack Black, plus many special guests. An Evening of Music to Benefit Autism Speaks, the world’s leading autism science and advocacy organization. Hosted by Kristen and Stephen Stills, the event will also feature performances by three artists with autism: Nikki Nik, Soulshocka, and Kyle Cousins.

From a story last year in Los Angeles Times by Randy Lewis:

Additionally, Stills has said previously that he took a page from Young’s playbook in getting Light Up the Blues off the ground, motivated by his own 18-year-old son Henry’s Asperger's syndrome, an autism-spectrum disorder. He and his wife looked at the annual Bridge School benefit in Northern California that Young and his ex-wife Pegi Young have been staging for the last quarter-century as a model for how to execute a benefit show.

“The Bridge School event is probably the best one," Stills told The Times in 2013. "They took everything they learned from other people's benefits and perfected it. This stuff gets complicated when you're dealing with road managers and production managers. But once we decided to do it, people just kept showing up saying they wanted to be involved. That's when you know you've got a winner."

More last year's 2015 Light Up The Blues 3rd Annual Concert (photos, videos, reviews, etc.).

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