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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.
It's not very unusual for artists who have been at it as long as Neil Young to keep their new material to a minimum at shows and focus on the old hits, but with four of his thirteen songs being off Psychedelic Pill and two of those passing the fifteen-minute mark, Neil did nothing of the sort. And those Psychedelic Pill cuts not only hold up, but were highlights of the show. The most inspiring moment for me came from the massive "Walk Like a Giant," which pieces together short verses with extended fuzz-drenched guitar solos and ended with about five straight minutes of psychedelic noise. Of course the show wasn't without the old Crazy Horse favorites too though. They ended the set with three of the best and most characteristic moments of their career, "Cinnamon Girl, a stretched-out "Fuckin' Up," and "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)." During that stretch of classic Crazy Horse, they also took things further back, squeezing in a cut from Neil's time with Buffalo Springfield, "Mr. Soul." They had a bit going on production wise too, with colossal mock Fender amps and a microphone, set up like a giant would be using them, a 50's-style TV screen that projected footage of the band on stage, and a road crew dressed as mad scientists and construction men. But overall, the show just felt like four guys rocking out together, and getting that from Neil Young in 2012 is a great experience to be part of.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse will be performing tonight at New York, NY – Madison Square Garden.
Doors at 6:30, Everest at 7:30, Patti Smith at 8:05 and Neil Young at 9pm.
Saturday in the Park with Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Global Citizen Festival in Central Park on Saturday Sept. 29, 2012, New York
(Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) - Bakersfield Now
(Click photo to enlarge)
Last Saturday, Neil Young & Crazy Horse headlined a free concert for the Global Poverty Project in Central Park, New York City.
Neil Young, sixty-seven years old next month, is a wonder. His voice is rougher and lower than it was when I first heard it, forty-six years ago, at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. But it’s as strong as it was in his Buffalo Springfield days, and as distinctive, and as clear, with those emphatic Canadian “r”s. Even against the cacophony of Crazy Horse’s tsunami of sound, you don’t need a lyric sheet to understand the words he sings the first time you hear them. You get the music and you get the meaning.
Back then he was a diffident young buck. Now he’s a lion, thrashing and roaring. He’s a buffalo in an autumn field, snorting and pawing the plain of the stage. For more than an hour, every minute of it intense, he sang and played, loped and ducked and stomped. This is not an oldies act. There was no “Everybody Knows,” no “Heart of Gold,” no “Old Man” (except the ones on the stage). From the long-ago past, only “The Needle and the Damage Done,” which he sang accompanied solely by his own acoustic guitar. (The set was beautifully paced.)
The shortage of “greatest hits” mattered not at all. In his late sixties Young is a volcano of creativity. The song about hearing “Like a Rolling Stone” for the first time was proof enough of that. For me, though, the night’s high point was another new composition of his, “Walk Like a Giant.” The lyrics are about disillusionment ("I used to walk like a giant on the land / Now I feel like a leaf floating on the stream"), but the music, its thunderous, feedback-rich electric guitars set off by a jaunty whistled bridge, is about defiance. Its stunning conclusion was a long series of stomps: Neil in his thick farmer’s boots slamming the floor—thud! thud! thud!—and putting his whole body into it, with every thud augmented by a bone-rattling guitar chord. It was as if we were being stalked by a tyrannosaur as big as the Beresford.
The concert ended the only way it properly could, with everyone on stage with the master, “Rockin’ in the Free World.” The last note faded at exactly 10 P.M.
Neil said: "We're joinin' forces for you up here."
I loved at the beginning of RITFW how Neil walked up to his wedge (guitar pedal system) and started to weave up an effect loop like he was throwing a pizza crust in the air or making some kind of rock and roll cacoon or something. It sounded awesome, then when Grohl brought in some heavily distorted power guitar riffs as the song spooled up to speed, man that was the most powerful start to that song I've ever heard. Unbeleiveable, I hope they put the full resolution video on youtube.
There was generally a good vibe on stage during the song with all the people up there singing and playing. I know that Neil was giving it his all, and I know that he felt the load of all those people wanting their socks knocked off. I think he did a great job leading the mob through the song.
I don't know if Neil has ever jammed with Grohl before, but I can say that I was getting some pretty heavy feelings back to Change Your Mind and Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. I think both Neil and Grohl were experiencing one of those rare connections through time back to where major waves changed them forever. Full circle type stuff. Anyway, I thought the Neil and Crazy Horse performance was top notch.
Thanks Kimball! Loved that full circle observation.
Photo of the Moment: Dave Grohl & Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Central Park, New York City, 9/29/12
Rockin' In The Free World
Neil Young & Crazy Horse w/ Dave Grohl
Photo by Twitter / zakclaxton
(Click photo to enlarge)
The Photo of the Moment is Dave Grohl & Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Central Park, New York City, 9/29/12. (Thanks Zak!)
Zack H. commented:
I read through comments before watching the video of "Rockin' in the Free World" and I was expecting to see a really pitiful performance by an old man well past his prime. That's not what I saw.
I saw a rock n' roll genius and legend who commanded a stage full of some twenty or thirty musicians and an audience of tens of thousands more. He was yelling and barking into the mic like a man possessed, wailing on his guitar, and stomping around the stage like some kind of...well...giant.
All of those other musicians seemed to be in complete awe, even the long-time members of Crazy Horse could look on at the younger guys with an expression on their face like "we still can't believe it and we've been playing with this dude for DECADES."
And how about that coda of the chorus? All that feedback and screaming guitar, and then Neil counting the band right back in? Everyone lost their mind at how much energy and passion that "old man" was showing. Neil himself couldn't help but smile at how well it had pulled off.
Retire "Rockin' in the Free World"? I don't think so. Neil just gave that song as much life as it's ever had, and I wouldn't put it past him to be able to top it yet.
Thanks Zack! A true rock & roll giant if there ever was one, we'd say.
2012-09-29, Central Park, New York City, New York, USA
Global Festival
w/ Crazy Horse
1. Love And Only Love
2. Powderfinger
3. Born In Ontario
4. Walk Like A Giant
5. The Needle And The Damage Done
6. Twisted Road
7. F*!#in' Up
8. Rockin' In The Free World
Rockin' In The Free World
Neil Young & Crazy Horse w/ Dave Grohl
Photo by Twitter / zakclaxton
(Click photo to enlarge)
I don't need to see another act in concert ever again. Just yards away from Neil young crazy horse Dave Grohl AND Dan Auerbach jam
For the concert’s finale Mr. Auerbach and Mr. Grohl brought their guitars to join Mr. Young and Crazy Horse in “Rockin’ in the Free World”; Band of Horses and K’Naan became a backup vocal choir. The song isn’t a simple celebration. It’s a juxtaposition of dire conditions in the verses and ironic joy in the choruses. It’s Mr. Young’s take on the complacent “free world” versus real life, and perhaps a song for those who want tweets to suffice as international actions. It was a clamorous multiguitar blowout and, for those who know the song, a hint of the real work ahead before the world can be saved.
The headliner was Neil Young with Crazy Horse, the band that has perfected rock as a primordial stomp.
Mr. Young’s set was molten and unkempt, yet it had his own kind of finesse. He and Crazy Horse, on their first tour since 2004, often huddled near the center of the stage, bobbing back and forth until their heads nearly touched, and their songs sometimes welled up out of a caldron of drone and distortion.
But Mr. Young’s voice was pure and precise, and his lead guitar could peal with straightforward melodies, or scrabble with frenetic intensity, or plunge to grapple with subterranean forces. The set included three songs from Mr. Young’s next album, “Psychedelic Pill,” due Oct. 30, and they were openly autobiographical.
“Walk Like a Giant” was also a pithy eulogy for 1960s idealism: “We were ready to save the world,” Mr. Young sang. “Then the weather changed and the white got stained and it fell apart/And it breaks my heart to think about how close we came.” It ended with blast after slow blast of the closing chord, dozens of times, turning into slabs of abstract noise.
F*!#in' Up
Unknown has left a new comment on your post "TONIGHT: Free Concert* - Neil Young & Crazy Horse,...":
Fell asleep tonight while reading 'Waging Heavy Peace', an amazingly transcendent autobiographical journey the the past, only to be awoken by "Powderfinger" from the YouTube page I had put on a couple of hours previously. I was coming out of a pretty hazy dream state, and hearing the Horse live suddenly was like a dream come true. It's past 3am here in CA as I write this and I can only say that their set was, for me anyway, like that gospel light shining! The boys were having a blast and the Horse was deep in the groove. These guys were putting their heart and soul into it, and if Neil seemed a bit winded at the end, well, who on God's green earth wouldn't be?! It's just a blessing they're still making great new music and laying it all on the line. If you're lucky enough to see them live on tour, soak it up and cherish it. You never want to say it'll be the last ride, but remember life is short. Dig this NOW.
Young was also focused on the present, playing several new songs in a set that featured only two tracks released before 1989. It began with a heavy, nearly fifteen-minute jam on Ragged Glory’s "Love and Only Love," with Young and guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro facing each other, playing blistering solos with punk attack. Young quickly launched into "Powderfinger," full of twin-guitar mastery. He also went acoustic for moving versions of "The Needle and the Damage Done" and the new "Twisted Road." "I'm remembering the first time I ever came here for an audition," Young said of New York City before the twangy new "Born in Ontario." "It’s a great place, even though I didn't get it."
Young was also focused on the present, playing several new songs in a set that featured only two tracks released before 1989. It began with a heavy, nearly fifteen-minute jam on Ragged Glory’s "Love and Only Love," with Young and guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro facing each other, playing blistering solos with punk attack. Young quickly launched into "Powderfinger," full of twin-guitar mastery. He also went acoustic for moving versions of "The Needle and the Damage Done" and the new "Twisted Road." "I'm remembering the first time I ever came here for an audition," Young said of New York City before the twangy new "Born in Ontario." "It’s a great place, even though I didn't get it."
Global Citizen Festival To End Extreme Poverty Concert replay stream
Dave Grohl, Neil Young and Dan Auerbach perform onstage at the Global Citizen Festival In Central Park To End Extreme Poverty - Show at Central Park on September 29, 2012 in New York City.
Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage
(Click photo to enlarge)
UPDATE: Concert is now streaming live. Looks and sounds great! Enjoy. (link below)
Tonight, Saturday, September 29th, Neil Young & Crazy Horse will perform a free concert* on the Great Lawn in New York City's Central Park.
The concert will be for the Global Festival, designed to bring awareness and funds to the cause of ending global poverty. Along with Neil Young & Crazy Horse, will be the Foo Fighters, Black Keys, Band of Horses and K'naan.
"Global Poverty Project organizers are hopeful about their tuneful approach to activism. "Since 1981, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has been halved to 25 percent. While progress has been remarkable, there's still a long way to go," he says. "Music and movements go hand-in-hand: from ending the slave trade in the 1800s through the freedom chant against apartheid in South Africa, music has been a key part of social change, and that's still so true today. It gives us an outlet to express that which we care about in the most meaningful and passionate of ways, which is the whole point of the Global Festival: it's equitable, so anyone can get involved in uniting so many people and non-profits around one cause. It's become a lot bigger than any of us have ever dreamed."
FREE CONCERT*: Neil Young & Crazy Horse @ Global Festival - Great Lawn, Central Park, September 29, 2012
A new concert date has been added for Neil Young & Crazy Horse this fall.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Foo Fighters, Black Keys, Band of Horses and K'naan will perform at the Great Lawn in New York's Central Park on September 29th as part of the Global Festival, a concert designed to bring awareness and funds to the cause of ending global poverty.
"Global Poverty Project organizers are hopeful about their tuneful approach to activism. "Since 1981, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has been halved to 25 percent. While progress has been remarkable, there's still a long way to go," he says. "Music and movements go hand-in-hand: from ending the slave trade in the 1800s through the freedom chant against apartheid in South Africa, music has been a key part of social change, and that's still so true today. It gives us an outlet to express that which we care about in the most meaningful and passionate of ways, which is the whole point of the Global Festival: it's equitable, so anyone can get involved in uniting so many people and non-profits around one cause. It's become a lot bigger than any of us have ever dreamed."
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