Concert Review – Neil Young

You know when it’s a hot night in Melbourne when 64 year old rock icon Neil Young saunters on stage at the Myer Music Bowl – in shorts! It was not the image that I had visualised when contemplating the concert – but any suggestion that Young was going to play a more casual concert in deference to the oppressive conditions was dismissed from the moment he struck the first crunching guitar chords and launched into the first strafing solo from the sets opener Love And Only Love.

Opening with a song from the 1990 album Ragged Glory was apt – the show that we were offered transpired to be both glorious and a little ragged – but ‘ragged’ in that way that Young does better than anyone.  ‘Ragged’ in the Young arsenal does not mean sloppy but rather it means raw, unrefined and wanton in the delivery. Young remains about the most ‘anti-showbiz’ of rock stars and in that lies his appeal.

Well that, and the fact that he’s still one of the most vital live guitar players on the planet.

Such is the depth of his catalogue of songs that I could easily name twenty or so great songs that I would have loved to have heard that he chose not to play. There was no Powderfinger or Like A Hurricane, no F*!#in’ Up or Over And Over. The acoustic set lacked Old Man. Heart Of Gold, Sugar Mountain, Harvest (or Harvest Moon), personal favourites like Down By The River, Long May You Run, Helpless and I’m An Ocean, or classics  like Southern Man, Ohio, Hey Hey My, My, Tonights The Night,  Only Love Can Break Your Heart or When You Dance.

But before you start feeling sorry for the folks that forked out 150 bucks to see this show rest assured that no-one went home feeling unsatisfied.

In a sense it was the performance that made the songs rather than the songs making the performance. Young’s band, not surprisingly was coherent and lucid, a power packed and subtlety laden combo that were both excellent in their own right and the perfect foil for their leader. Young is actually a living illustration of the comment that “the guitar became an extension of himself”. He is such an instinctive player – he never plays  a solo exactly the same as he has played it before and he uses each the recorded version song not as a template but as a blank canvas to be filled in as he feels inclined on each night.

Speaking of blank canvases – about ten of those are filled in every night by painter Eric Johnson. Apparently Johnson is a member of the road crew who has a penchant for paint and brushes and each night he sets up on stage and creates paintings. He does so with such focus and intensity that he seems barely aware of the concert going on around him and he turns out up to ten every night. They look pretty impressive from a distance and it seems they are signed by both the artist and Young and are sold to benefit Young’s Bridge School charity.

It could only happen at a Neil Young show.

Returning to the music the concert starts with a definitely electric selection that on this night included Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Cortez The Killer the surprisingly great I’ve Been Waiting For You (for the only time on this tour) , Spirit Road and Cinnamon Girl as well as a new song called Sea Change. This section concludes with Ragged Glory’s Mother Earth. Of these probably the highlight was Cortez, a song which seems to be weighed down by a plodding rhythm reminiscent of a thirsty man crossing the desert and yet somehow becomes an intense and spiralling journey.

This section gives way to a wonderful more acoustic set that opens with The Needle And The Damage Done, another new song Light A Candle before the sublime trio of Four Strong Winds, Unknown Legend and One Of These Days. Get Back To The Country provides the segue way into the electric run down the home straight.

Another new song that seemed to called Just Singing A Sing led into the monumental and massively crowd pleasing Rockin’ In The Free World, a song that Young was happy to let false finish about five times.

As we awaited the encore most of the audience would have been mentally running a check list of their favorite Neil Young songs hoping that they might hit the jackpot.

But this is Neil Young remember? Rather than delve into his own back catalogue for a finale he offers up an outrageous version of The Beatles A Day In The Life. As the song concludes with a string snapping anarchic symphony of Young’s beloved feedback, the audience is left a little confused by most definitely amazed.

While it was clear from the outset that Young wasn’t going to waste too much breath on snappy repartee, nor was he going to play anyone’s idea of a greatest hits set, he managed to connect with his audience in a way that few live artists can. Performing with a commitment and vitality that would befit a performer half his age he left this audience member with only one thought – long may he run.