On February 14th, 1992, Neil Young played a sold out solo acoustic set at the Beacon Theater featuring 9 songs off his masterful mid-period sequel Harvest Moon, and nearly got himself booed off stage. Why? Harvest Moon wouldn’t be released for another six months.
Fast forward 20 odd years and it is that concert and not Neil Young’s 1970 Carnegie Hall gig that is in the back of my mind at the first night of Young’s four night stand at Carnegie Hall last night. But it is 1970, Young is thinking of: he references his father having been in the audience, covers Phil Ochs, remembers being so distracted by someone shouting a request in the middle of a song that he walked off stage. Surrounded by three pianos and five guitars, two of which he didn’t touch, Young won’t be playing an album we’ve never heard of this year; he will be taking us on a journey through an alternative reality where the rocker side of Young never happened and the folkie lived supreme.
In 150 minutes with a 20 minute break performs a 23 song set. Young is talkative though not friendly as he reaches as far back as Buffalo Springfield and gets no closer than Harvest Moon, with the heart of the set five perfect Harvest tracks, dotted like nuggets of gold in a silver mine. Two songs off Comes A time, two songs off After The Goldrush, Young couldn’t have plotted the set better. Simply put, this was the set we dreamt about, Young playing his great folk songs with a clear eyed passion, flooring us time after time after time. What can you do with a set whose third song is “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” and ninth song is “Harvest”. What can you do with a “Harvest” that cuts the recorded version? You can follow it with “Old Man” to end the first set. Performing with an acoustic guitar given to him by Stills with chips where it saved some poor performers life from a gunshot, as Neil does all night he reaches for a depth of feeling and somehow manages to find it. His voice sweet and the whinge that comes with the territory, he invites us to “a celebration of music, love and instruments” and then plays those two notes intro and leads us to transcencence without sentimentality.
There is no let down with the second half, on the contrary, show me a concert with Mr. Young playing “Mr. Soul” on organ and I will show you a contender for the best concert of 2014.
If there is a problem it is that try as Young will, his bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired. “A little voice in my head keeps saying ‘Be nice'” Young claims after slamming some audience members trying to speak to connect with him. “You’ve paid big money to be here tonight, you should be able to hear each other,”he sneers. You can tell Neil is straining to be nice but he isn’t really managing it, he stops “Ohio” and tells us we clapping off beat. Sweetly enough but you just know what he’s thinking. The stage itself while lovely is bathed in dark lights and Neil us wearing a huge hat so you can’t really see him -which, come to think of it, is probably just as well.
But those are minor caveats.
A year after seeing Young play a 27 minute song with Crazy Horse at MSG, Young is flawlessly attuned to these backpages. he doesn’t extend them, he doesn’t jam out on anything; he performs “A Man Needs A Maid” on the organ and gets the Cathedral sound of the break note perfect. His voice has lost a little from the top (he changes keys during one song) but he still has range and if his voice isn’t what it was his harp playing is if anything better than it ever used to be. Using the superb Carnegie Hall acoustics, he dips his harp in water to show the change in tone. It is like a masterclass, “I played lots of small clubs at the start of my career, that’s how I can do this.” he explains.
The second set includes a powerful “Ohio”, a song which should be too set in a time and place to last, but lives on for us here: perhaps there is something that lives past its time in rebellion. He also sings two junkie songs, one a Bert Jansch cover, and never really seems to falter for a moment. Wandering around the stage, touching his guitars, he seems to be thinking about his musical history, really from around 1966 – 1972 and playing it at the same time.
Last night was the first of a four night stand and rumor has it he will be playing different sets each night. I hope not. I hope everybody gets to hear how a great rocker can mesmerize an audience, how at the very height of his powers there is nothing to compare to Neil Young.
Grade: A
Set 1:
From Hank to Hendrix
On the Way Home
(Buffalo Springfield song)
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Love in Mind
Mellow My Mind
Are You Ready for the Country
Someday
Changes
(Phil Ochs cover)
Harvest
Old Man
Set 2:
Goin’ Back
A Man Needs a Maid
Ohio
(Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song)
Southern Man
Mr. Soul
(Buffalo Springfield song)
Needle of Death
(Bert Jansch cover)
The Needle and the Damage Done
Harvest Moon
Flying on the Ground Is Wrong
(Buffalo Springfield song)
After the Gold Rush
Heart of Gold
Encore:
Comes a Time
Long May You Run
(The Stills-Young Band song)