Comment of the Moment: Neil Young's "The focus, a gift": Reflecting on Reflections

Neil Young

Neil Young recently wrote of how the events of 2020 have had a positive aspect: "The focus was the gift".

 

Which brings us to the Comment of the Moment on Neil Young's "The focus, a gift": Reflecting on Reflections by the "Inextinguishable Scotsman":  

 

A note to those of you understandably cautious about upgrading your NYA membership(or subscribing for the first time):

Via the new Concert Timeline feature, the NYA website brings Neil (and many of his bands) into your living room to perform a diverse and thrilling series of time-travelling gigs for you.

Here's the context:

Neil has literally thousands of hours' worth of live recordings in his personal archive — far more than he could ever release to a conventional schedule. But now he has started to regularly upload complete concerts (exclusively) to the NYA website.

This a very civilised way to enjoy some live music. There are no drunk jerks spilling their beer on you, or loud-mouths babbling in your ear. It's just you, the music, your imagination, and the conversation here (you can take that last bit or leave it — your choice).

Already, we've experienced an Alchemy gig from 2013. A classic Zuma show from 1976. And a barn-storming Crazy Horse performance from Sweden 2001 that sounds more impressive than several of Neil's mainstream live albums.

And it seems fair to assume all this is just the beginning.

And at 40 dollars a year, it is essentially a gift.

After all, isn't it true that we've all spent *far* more than that on box sets that started gathering dust just two weeks after we bought 'em?

But NYA is constantly being updated, reinvigorated. It has potential to be just as much fun (and just as fresh) in 6 months as it is today.

That's a bargain.

Now, I think there are things that NYA could be doing better. There are still many small improvements (with big impact) still to make. And the longevity of the project is still in question.

(...That last point is a significant one, and always has been. That's why I'm keen for NYA to make a profit and stand on its own two feet. Projects that make a profit tend to stick around.)

Overall, though, I'm impressed so far. And the NYA team are obviously putting some effort into improving the experience.

The bottom line:

Neil is an artist famous for coming alive on the live stage. That's where he unleashes his fullest, most soulful and most intense peformances.

And already NYA has shared a generous handful of concerts surely worth far more than the price of admission.

Yes, some fans will ignore these remarkable live shows because they aren't slickly-packaged (with accompanying deluxe box set and hefty price tag).

We, on the other hand, are more perceptive. We already understand that the most priceless gems aren't always clearly on display in a fancy jewellers — instead, they need to be dug for. We need to discover them.

And there are already plenty of gems wanting to be discovered on NYA.

My advice? Get subscribed and start discovering, by all means.

Scotsman. 

Scotsman, yet again you say what many feel but may not be able to express as clearly.

As we have noted here before, what we fans are experiencing is nearly unprecedented during an artists lifetime -- an "avalanche of an embarrassment of riches" cascading down the mountains. Or "priceless gems" --  as you suggest. Often such deluges occur long after the artist has passed into the Great Sky. So we are obviously quite lucky to be enjoying these rare releases while Neil is still here and productively creative.

We can only imagine what other treasures remain to be opened. In the meantime, we enjoy the moments of "Young Shakespeare", "Way Down in The Rust Bucket", "Return to Greendale" and the other sonic and visual multitudes.

More on Neil Young's "The focus, a gift": Reflecting on Reflections.

Neil Young's "The focus, a gift": Reflecting on Reflections

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