Going Back to Greendale #3: Photo of the Moment - Neil Young Gets Air w/ "Sun Green"

Neil Young and "Sun Green"
Greendale at Radio City Music Hall, New York City - March 18, 2004
photos by thrasher

In anticipation of the premiering of Neil Young's "RETURN TO GREENDALE" film on Hearse Theater | Neil Young Archives, we are going back 17 years to 2003 when the Greendale album and concerts first emerged.

As you will see in our series "Going Back to Greendale", the reaction back in 2003 was literally bewildering for both hard core and casual Neil Young fans.

But history has vindicated the highly experimental Greendale production much to our delight. enjoy!

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The Photo of the Moment is from the Greendale tour Radio City Music Hall, New York City on March 18, 2004 of Neil Young and "Sun Green".

If you look closely, you will see that Neil's feet actually leave the stage where he hovers a few inches in a dance with "Sun Green". In our 100+ concerts, we've never seen Neil's feet not firmly planted on the stage. He's not the jump around guy. More of a stomper and lunger guitar player.

"Be The Rain"

We recall quite clearly from where we stood in about the 4th or 5th row at New York City's Radio City Music Hall the look of joy and delight on Neil's face as they entire cast and crew joined in for the epic finale of Greendale's "Be The Rain".

With everyone in the sold out audience finally on their feet, Radio City Music Hall was bouncing along with Neil and Sun. And then happened. Neil appeared to levitate above the stage. Not really so much of a hop but like he just pushed his feet off the stage and floated up a few inches.

And then it was over. Neil came back to EARTH, "Be The Rain" concluded in glorious fashion with cast and crew doing a big bow and the set concluding before the intermission and the electric Crazy Horse set that would complete the night.

"Be a goddess in the planet wars"
Greta, Sun Green, Julia Butterfly & Neil Young's "Greendale"

As we've argued repeatedly over the years about the vastly underrated and under appreciated Greendale, the inconvenient truth of Greendale was that Sun Green -- and Neil Young -- were right.

More on "Sun Green" and being a goddess in the planet wars.

More Radio City Music Hall, New York City photos of Greendale set and Neil Young & Crazy Horse set. Also, see Greendale setlists.

More up to date Greendale photos on 2004 concerts from Detroit, Camden and Hershey.

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"Silver and Gold": Neil Young’s Most Precious Treasure | Talkhouse

Author Morgan Enos & "Silver and Gold" by Neil Young

Here's a nice article about how Neil Young’s album "Silver and Gold" (2000) helps a young family forge new traditions.

From Silver and Gold is Neil Young’s Most Precious Treasure | Talkhouse by Morgan Enos:

My wife Brenna and I have been married for a year and a half, and we recently bought a house two hours away from her family and 3,000 miles from mine. While we’re grateful and somewhat dumbstruck to have joined the middle class, we sometimes struggle with a sense of disconnection and dislocation in suburban climes. Which goes doubly right now as the coronavirus pandemic keeps us and so many others inside.

With our loved ones unavailable in person, Brenna and I take connection and grounding wherever we can get it. Every weekend, we do about all we can do to fight the isolation: get in the car, find a secluded back road near some rusted-out barns, and burn some daylight. Nine times out of ten, we reach for a Young album that isn’t mentioned much these days.

Out of all his albums, Young’s homey 2000 album Silver and Gold is a balm for right now. [emphasis added]

Featuring slide guitarist and pedal steel player Ben Keith, pianist and organist Spooner Oldham, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, drummers Jim Keltner and Kenny Buttrey, and guest vocalists Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, the album is preoccupied with the passage of time, the importance of family bonds and the eternal nature of true love.

Full article Silver and Gold is Neil Young’s Most Precious Treasure | Talkhouse by Morgan Enos.

Incidentally, we featured another article by Morgan Enos recently How Neil Young's Eccentric Online Home Was Born | Fortune.

Thanks Morgan! Normally we would say keep on isolating in the free world! Except that's really a terrible affirmation since we want everyone free. So we'll just say once again, Keep Calm, No Fear, Shut It Down, and Keep on Rockin'!

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Roger Waters Selects Neil Young's "Helpless" As A Song He Couldn’t Live Without | Far Out Magazine

Roger Waters and Neil Young
2016 Bridge School Benefit Concerts: October 22 & 23

From From Leonard Cohen to Neil Young: Roger Waters picks 8 songs he couldn’t live without | Far Out Magazine:

Roger Waters: “Neil Young singing ‘Helpless’.

There is an honesty and a truth in everything that he’s done. You feel the man’s integrity and passion. I can feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck now remembering the purity with which he hits the first notes of this song.

It’s extraordinarily moving and eloquent.”

A Photo of the Moment back in 2017 was Roger Waters and Neil Young at the 2016 Bridge School Benefit Concerts: October 22 & 23 .

Waters and Young covered Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" along with Jim James.

From Jammin' with Neil Young: Influences and Musical Collaborations Other Artists -- Roger Waters and Neil Young:

From Rockline Interview by Bob Cockburn (Feb 8, 1993 - Transcript: http://www.rogerwaters.org/rocklineint.html)

BC: As we roll "It's A Miracle" underneath us (It's a Miracle played in the background) by Roger Waters from Amused To Death I'll pose this question. When you write songs and create an album, are responses like Dan's that you justgot, what you hoped for? That you can take a microcosm of a situation, and someone like Dan can hear it and expand on it, expound upon it and take it to another interpretation? Is that what you hope people will do with your music?

RW: I just a... you know, if I move people and they listen to something and they get a shiver down their spines then I've fulfilled my function. If I make them think about something, above their own lives, and about the way they relate to other human beings, than that's an added bonus. I've been listening to Neil Young's new album recently. When we cook dinner in the evenings we put it on and listen to it, you know? "I'm a Dreaming Man" (sings the title verse) maybe that's my problem. I can relate to that.

From Q special edition October 2004 on Pink Floyd:

Q) Did you feel any sense of of common cause with the Punks, or understand why they were doing what they did?

Roger Waters: Do you know, I`ve never been very interested in modern music.

I might find some of it enjoyable, but it`s never really been interesting.

I never really heard the Clash, and certainly not the Sex Pistols, so I can`t really answer that question.

As I still am now, I was listening to Neil Young when all that happened. It passed me by.

I`ll always listen to a new Dylan album.

But it takes an awful lot of something for anyone else to break in to what I listen to.

From October 2005 interview on http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/

Q: Is there any artist that you would love to perform with? Or one artist in particular that you really love to jam it out with?

Roger Waters: I always enjoy working with Eric [Clapton] who was in my band in 1985. I also worked with Don Henley, but these are friends of mine, and I'm trying to think of somebody. I'm a big fan of singer-songwriters like Neil Young who are loners and sometimes hard to imagine working with. I find it hard to answer that question, I don't really jam with people so it doesn't enter my mind when it comes to
fun. Fishing, sex, but jamming, no.

From Transcript: Interview with Roger Waters | CLOSE UP | TV ONE | tvnz.co.nz:

"What modern-day music do you think might last the test of time?

Roger Waters: Do you know to be perfectly honest with you I don't really listen to very much music and certainly not much contemporary pop music anyway. It's not to say that I don't think it's any good. It's just my interest lies in other areas. I still listen to music and I listen to a lot of classical music and I have my few favourite sort of song writers who, when they produce new work, I'll sort of listen to it. So I always buy the new Dylan album and the new Neil Young album and the new John Prine album and I'll sniff around one or two other things if I catch something on the radio. But by in large I'm not really interested in it."

More on Jammin' with Neil Young: Influences and Musical Collaborations Other Artists.


Bob Dylan, Neil Young & Eric Clapton,
Madison Square Garden, New York City - 1992

Not that we really needed any proof, but here are 50 reasons why Neil Young is the second most influential singer-songwriter of the 21st century still performing today.

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PREMIERE TODAY: "Double E" from "Return To Greendale" | Neil Young Archives

"Double E"
Hearse Theater Screen #2 | Neil Young Archives

The song "Double E" from "RETURN TO GREENDALE" film is scheduled to premiere today in Hearse Theater Screen #2 | Neil Young Archives.

Directed by L.A. Johnson and Bernard Shakey, the second chapter of RETURN TO GREENDALE is performed live in Tornato with full cast. Each Monday will feature a chapter from Greendale.

"Change comes slow in the country
When you're new
There's a lot of distrust
Years pass by uneventful
And memories turn to dust"
~~ "Double E" lyrics by Neil Young

Last week, the song "Falling From Above" from "RETURN TO GREENDALE" film is scheduled to premiere today in Hearse Theater | Neil Young Archives.

'A little love and affection
In everything you do
Will make the world a better place
With or without you'
"Falling From Above" via Neil Young Archives

Previously, "Sun Green" from "Return To Greendale" premiered.

"Sun Green" welded to the eagles beak
"There's Corruption on THE HIGHEST FLOOR"
(and most of the floors below, too) : Yet More Inconvenient Truth in Greendale

In March, the the world premiere of "Leave The Driving" from film RETURN TO GREENDALE by Neil Young & Crazy Horse was held on NYA.

"Are Protesters Terrorists?"
Grandpa (Larry Cragg) & Grandma (Twink Brewer)
Scene from RETURN TO GREENDALE by Neil Young & Crazy Horse
via "Return To Greendale" World Premiere | NYA

A premiere screening of the film RETURN TO GREENDALE by Neil Young & Crazy Horse was held at Balboa Theater in San Francisco, CA on Jan 28, 2020.

RETURN TO GREENDALE @ Balboa Theater, San Francisco, CA - Jan 28, 2020

A premiere screening of the film RETURN TO GREENDALE by Neil Young & Crazy Horse was held at Balboa Theater in San Francisco, CA on Jan 28, 2020, where much of the cast and crew attended, as we reported.

GREENDALE 2020 HINDSIGHT by James Mazzeo

In January, a preview of the upcoming concert film of the Greendale Tour by Neil Young & Crazy Horse was featured on Goin' To Greendale | BENTLEY’S BANDSTAND | NYA.

Goin' To Greendale | BENTLEY’S BANDSTAND | NYA

Music industry veteran Bill Bentley writes about his Greendale experience and seeing the film of the 2003 Toronto concert: ‘And that, dear listeners, is when the bells start ringing, the lights start flashing and the thrillometer heats up all the way to the top of the tube.'

Sun Green (Sara White) and Grandpa (Ben Keith)

"Greendale" on Neil Young Archives in the Hearse Theater

Neil Young calls "Greendale" on Times-Contrarian | NYA "one of the biggest highlights of my filming life".

Neil Young Filming Greendale Actors Grandpa & Jed

"Everything You're Looking For" - Bandit

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Greendale Tour @ Radio City Music Hall, New York, March 18, 2004

Photo by thrashette

Neil Young News: Premiere; RETURN TO GREENDALE by Neil Young & Crazy Horse @ Balboa Theater, San Francisco, CA - Jan 28, 2020
See https://t.co/hTt0IDeLud
---#CrazyHorse4HOF @NeilYoungNYA @CrazyHorse4HoF pic.twitter.com/UdjixWOKSy

— ThrashersWheat (@ThrashersWheat) February 2, 2020

LEAVING GREENDALE
POP. 25,810

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Going Back to Greendale #2: "This is Greendale" Brochure: Tomorrow's Town - Today

"This is Greendale" Brochure
Tomorrow's Town - Today (1948)

In anticipation of the premiering of Neil Young's "RETURN TO GREENDALE" film on Hearse Theater | Neil Young Archives, we are going back 17 years to 2003 when the Greendale album and concerts first emerged.

As you will see in our series "Going Back to Greendale", the reaction back in 2003 was literally bewildering for both hard core and casual Neil Young fans.

But history has vindicated the highly experimental Greendale production much to our delight. enjoy!

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Back in 2018, we reported on a quite amazing discovery by one of our dear Thrasher's Wheat readers and supporters, Dionys in Germany.

Given the recent highlighting of the Greendale album on the Neil Young Archives (NYA), we thought this would be an excellent time to share a preview of "This is Greendale" brochure. Greendale, Wisconsin is an actual town that was established in 1938 and this brochure was assembled for the town's 10th anniversary.

Wisconsin Area
"This is Greendale" Brochure (p. #13)
(Click photo to enlarge)

Greendale at Radio City Music Hall, New York City - March 17, 2004
photo by thrashette

Maintenance, Public Service, Motivation For A Free Press, Block of Shops and Stores Essential
"This is Greendale" Brochure (p. #5)

Greendale at Radio City Music Hall, New York City - March 17, 2004
photo by thrashette

Elementary Education, A Well Stocked, Modern Library, And The Arts That Tend To Culture, The School - A Building of Great Beauty
"This is Greendale" Brochure (p. #6)

Greendale at Radio City Music Hall, New York City - March 17, 2004
photo by thrashette

And w/ Full Time Play Director, Local Teams Meet Their Opponents, Day Memorial Observed, It's Play Space in Wooded Setting
"This is Greendale" Brochure (p. #7)

Greendale at Radio City Music Hall, New York City - March 17, 2004
photo by thrashette

Suggested Town Plan for Greater Greendale
"This is Greendale" Brochure (p. #17)

Greendale at Radio City Music Hall, New York City - March 17, 2004
photo by thrashette

A Typical Pathway
"This is Greendale" Brochure (p. #20)

Thanks again so much Dionys for sharing your find with all the Rusties!

Full brochure is uploaded @ "This is Greendale" Brochure.

Greendale at Radio City Music Hall, New York City - March 17, 2004
photo by thrashette

"This is Greendale" Brochure (p. #24)
(Click photo to enlarge)

Sun Green Was Right!

The Inconvenient Truth of Greendale

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