An unofficial news blog for Neil Young fans from Thrasher's Wheat with concert and album updates, reviews, analysis, and other Rock & Roll ramblings. Separating the wheat from the chaff since 1996.
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Monday, July 18, 2022
VIDEO: Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse @ Fuji Rock Festival, 2001-07-28
Great time for the Horse. When the timeline concert from that tour was uploaded, the melody from Gateway really stuck in my head. And that’s no small feat since those things aren’t the most easily accessed content, other than the concert of the moment. But the tune kept coming back to me. Neil now expresses real regret over not having released Toast at the time. I say, don’t be so hard on yourself, sir. Are You Passionate, while not a banger in its time, has grown in appreciation from the fanbase. For me, it beats out the three studio albums that followed. If he had put out Toast like he says he should’ve, AYP would never have been. And I venture to say Toast, for its part, could very likely have been panned at the time. Now, with patience, we have both records. What a treat. Can they be reconciled into one grand statement? With the magic of playlists, this is possible. Here’s my favorite way to overdo it:
1. Boom Boom Boom I just really love this song as a warm up to the journey to come. It’s totally original, with plenty of space between the notes for the studio stank to seep through. Plus, it was one of the first tunes recorded for the sessions and is a more tantalizing introduction than either of the albums’ kickoff tracks. 2. You’re My Girl 3. Mr. Disappointment 4. Differently 5. Quit (Don’t Say You Love Me) Since AYP was what we heard first, it’s only fair to proceed with a quadruple threat from that 2002 CD. You’re My Girl is just the sweetest dedication that I bet a lot of parents can relate to. Then you get immersed in the MGs’ treatment of otherwise unheard Toast material and the super soulful Differently and practically go swimming in that soupy B-3 sound. 6. Standing In The Light Of Love 7. Goin’ Home 8. Timberline 9. Gateway Of Love 10. How Ya Doin’? This is a perfect point to switch off into Horse territory. We are ready to rock! Standing In The Light Of Love was the first fully Toast Toast we got to hear. It kicks ass. The heart of Toast remains intact and the heartbroken vibe does not let up for over half an hour. Awesome. I think that’s enough time to return to Mr. Disappointment; he sounds even more disappointed with the slower tempo and more honest voice. 11. Let’s Roll 12. Are You Passionate? 13. Goin’ Home Yes, that moment is here. That moment when we listen to Let’s Roll. We can’t skip Let’s Roll, can’t pretend it didn’t happen. When heard as an ode to the bravery of regular people in the face of terror rather than as the hawkish call to deployment it could be taken for, Let’s Roll is actually a pretty cool song, and the band more than do it justice. Somehow, despite all the strife of blowing off one record for the next, enduring pained relationships and national trauma, a loose narrative still seemed to break through in Neil Young’s sequencing of AYP, something we can see he took seriously with all the possible permutations of song orders on the back cover. The family and marriage themes of the early tracks give way to the shock of attack and burden of war. Nothing else needs to be said about the title track but it’s perfect and beautiful. And what an impact the AYP version of Goin’ Home made, and makes still. We all love the brutal drumming and the brutal ending. It was a characteristic stroke of genius to include one Crazy Horse song on the album, and it was *this* song. This is the mythical Crazy Horse, from the lost sessions. It retains this quality here. 14. When I Hold You In My Arms 15. Be With You 16. Two Old Friends 17. She’s A Healer And yet, Are You Passionate rolls on. Again, contrasts are crucial when it comes to the flow of an album, a film, a story or work of art of any kind. The epic bleakness of Goin’ Home gives way to the folksy hand wringing of When I Hold You In My Arms, and it wouldn’t have worked better in any configuration. We are lucky to have the ebullient Be With You to buoy us up into the warm embrace of the best Motown feel the MGs have to offer. And Two Old Friends, a fan favorite, serves the purpose of relieving some of the weighty themes posed by the mid-album 9/11 inspired songs before She’s A Healer performs a similar function for the heartsick husband of the earlier tracks. Thrasher’s Wheat contributors seem to generally agree Healer is a high point of the record and possibly exceeds the excellence of its Toast counterpart. Either way, it’s a hell of a finale. 18. Quit Ok, I’ll say it. This is the superior version of the song. The funny thing is, the two are so alike, they should stay as far apart as possible: 20 years, or at least the better part of a playlist’s distance. But that’s not the only reason Quit landed here. Inclusion as a coda to our listen symbolizes the wait we had to finally hear Toast. And the sadness of “don’t say you love me” turned out to be the truest end to this story, taking us back to the beginning in a legendary little San Francisco recording studio. Let’s go listen to Toast again, on vinyl this time.
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Great time for the Horse. When the timeline concert from that tour was uploaded, the melody from Gateway really stuck in my head. And that’s no small feat since those things aren’t the most easily accessed content, other than the concert of the moment. But the tune kept coming back to me. Neil now expresses real regret over not having released Toast at the time. I say, don’t be so hard on yourself, sir. Are You Passionate, while not a banger in its time, has grown in appreciation from the fanbase. For me, it beats out the three studio albums that followed. If he had put out Toast like he says he should’ve, AYP would never have been. And I venture to say Toast, for its part, could very likely have been panned at the time. Now, with patience, we have both records. What a treat. Can they be reconciled into one grand statement? With the magic of playlists, this is possible. Here’s my favorite way to overdo it:
ReplyDelete1. Boom Boom Boom
ReplyDeleteI just really love this song as a warm up to the journey to come. It’s totally original, with plenty of space between the notes for the studio stank to seep through. Plus, it was one of the first tunes recorded for the sessions and is a more tantalizing introduction than either of the albums’ kickoff tracks.
2. You’re My Girl
3. Mr. Disappointment
4. Differently
5. Quit (Don’t Say You Love Me)
Since AYP was what we heard first, it’s only fair to proceed with a quadruple threat from that 2002 CD. You’re My Girl is just the sweetest dedication that I bet a lot of parents can relate to. Then you get immersed in the MGs’ treatment of otherwise unheard Toast material and the super soulful Differently and practically go swimming in that soupy B-3 sound.
6. Standing In The Light Of Love
7. Goin’ Home
8. Timberline
9. Gateway Of Love
10. How Ya Doin’?
This is a perfect point to switch off into Horse territory. We are ready to rock! Standing In The Light Of Love was the first fully Toast Toast we got to hear. It kicks ass. The heart of Toast remains intact and the heartbroken vibe does not let up for over half an hour. Awesome. I think that’s enough time to return to Mr. Disappointment; he sounds even more disappointed with the slower tempo and more honest voice.
11. Let’s Roll
12. Are You Passionate?
13. Goin’ Home
Yes, that moment is here. That moment when we listen to Let’s Roll. We can’t skip Let’s Roll, can’t pretend it didn’t happen. When heard as an ode to the bravery of regular people in the face of terror rather than as the hawkish call to deployment it could be taken for, Let’s Roll is actually a pretty cool song, and the band more than do it justice. Somehow, despite all the strife of blowing off one record for the next, enduring pained relationships and national trauma, a loose narrative still seemed to break through in Neil Young’s sequencing of AYP, something we can see he took seriously with all the possible permutations of song orders on the back cover. The family and marriage themes of the early tracks give way to the shock of attack and burden of war. Nothing else needs to be said about the title track but it’s perfect and beautiful. And what an impact the AYP version of Goin’ Home made, and makes still. We all love the brutal drumming and the brutal ending. It was a characteristic stroke of genius to include one Crazy Horse song on the album, and it was *this* song. This is the mythical Crazy Horse, from the lost sessions. It retains this quality here.
14. When I Hold You In My Arms
15. Be With You
16. Two Old Friends
17. She’s A Healer
And yet, Are You Passionate rolls on. Again, contrasts are crucial when it comes to the flow of an album, a film, a story or work of art of any kind. The epic bleakness of Goin’ Home gives way to the folksy hand wringing of When I Hold You In My Arms, and it wouldn’t have worked better in any configuration. We are lucky to have the ebullient Be With You to buoy us up into the warm embrace of the best Motown feel the MGs have to offer. And Two Old Friends, a fan favorite, serves the purpose of relieving some of the weighty themes posed by the mid-album 9/11 inspired songs before She’s A Healer performs a similar function for the heartsick husband of the earlier tracks. Thrasher’s Wheat contributors seem to generally agree Healer is a high point of the record and possibly exceeds the excellence of its Toast counterpart. Either way, it’s a hell of a finale.
18. Quit
Ok, I’ll say it. This is the superior version of the song. The funny thing is, the two are so alike, they should stay as far apart as possible: 20 years, or at least the better part of a playlist’s distance. But that’s not the only reason Quit landed here. Inclusion as a coda to our listen symbolizes the wait we had to finally hear Toast. And the sadness of “don’t say you love me” turned out to be the truest end to this story, taking us back to the beginning in a legendary little San Francisco recording studio. Let’s go listen to Toast again, on vinyl this time.
Hey folks. This account has the Fuji Rock concert in full (in two parts).
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-nP86QM0i4&ab_channel=DangWingnut
@ Tomatron - What a playlist. As you say, the magic of playlists makes this all possible.
ReplyDeleteThanks for our Comment of the Moment @
http://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2022/07/comment-of-moment-video-neil-young-w.html
@ Greg - good to hear from you our long lost friend. hope you're doing well these days.
thanks for link update!