There is only one way to enjoy a Neil Young and Crazy Horse concert and that is, around the fifteen minute of the opening song "Love And Only Love" to relax and stop playing such close attention to Neil and the three man Crazy Horse, debatably the greatest jam band in the world. Unmistakably the loudest.
The sonic in extremis of Crazy Horse is a bizarre sort of ambient music, and at Madison Square Garden, if you let your attention drift in and out , at odd times the interlocking riffs between Frank "Poncho" Sampedro and Young will draw you back in and if visually it is kinda Night Of the Living Dead, the intensity of the sound, can blow you away. Boring? Only if it is the only activity at the time.
I spent the time texting Helen with updates on "Walk Like A Giant". The sixteen minute study in nostalgia off the new Psychedelic Pill had my vote for the potential longest song in the set. I figured it was a definite 16 minutes and anything longer was gravy. Certainly it had my vote because
1. It is a pretty damn good song
and
2. Better than the interminable "Ramada Inn".
And Young and the band certainly get the most of the fuzzy feedback and the whistling works as a hook which it is meant to on the album but is just kinda weird, and the song itself is revealing enough to take another look at. For one thing, it isn't particularly true, as the later, mid 60s Buffalo Springfield, which Neil sings near the end, certainly reminds us of clearly enough, Young was just as miserable at 25 as at 65. So why he is claiming he was wandering round the States like a giant is a good albeit useless question. Also the lyric, why on earth is he referring to himself as beef floating in the stream. Er, actually I just checked the lyric and apparently I hallucinated that line. Maybe I hallucinated the entire thing, including 8 minutes of feedback to cap off the entire enterprise and clocking in at a robust 24 minutes.
To call this stuff self-indulgent is to damn Young with faint praise. It is like a long daydream where you lose the plot in the middle of it. During the song I glazed over, did something else, remembered an old girlfriend before realizing it wasn't actually me that dated her but my friend Andrew. So, I was remembering a daydream… I wondered the Universe and life and the joy of time and how it feels like when it stands still. And whistling, which I can't do to save my life and then…
The song was was over and there was an excerpt from"Woodstock" the movie on the close circuit TV (the bit just as the thunderstorm arrives). Then I looked down at my watch again and when I looked up Young was playing an impossibly pretty "The Needle And The damage Done" and then singing a verse of "Twisted Road" a capella and finally the piano based unreleased "Singer Without Song" with an actress playing the girl with a guitar case wandering around the stage.
And then back to the hard stuff with an interminable "Ramada Inn" -sort aural marijuana.
Patti Smith was the opening act but I arrived late and only heard "Gloria" which sounded awesome.
So, that's it. Crazy Horse formed in 1963 and Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina are still in the band, Young started playing with them in 1968 and newcomer Pancho joined in 1975. These are old pros and how you like em will depend on how much you enjoy the power of electric guitars banging out hard riffs and a bass and drums holding em steady as they go. I like it fine, but only if I don't pay too close attention.
Grade: B+