My buddy David Bronson went to see Neil Young Thursday night but did he get a better show? On day three Young didn’t perform his brilliant reimagining of “Mr. Soul” and substituted “Journey Through Past” -a huge miss for young David, and the first two days win that round.
“Journey Through The Past” is a fabulous song but it slows the end of the second set to a crawl and undercuts what survives of his “one song” joke before playing “After The Goldrush”. It hits me as a mistake.
But this didn’t, he changed the concert opening from
Hank To Hendrix
On The Way Home
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
to
Hank To Hendrix
Helpless
On The Way Home
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
A huge improvement, that may be the best concert first four songs Neil has ever played, and what’s better for the audience, he didn’t drop a song, indeed he also played “Birds” and the first set was 12 songs instead of 10 songs.
So something must have given timewise, and I’m guessing Neil spoke less. PS I’ve including some film off youtube at the bottom from Tuesdays gig by Tino Bekkerring.
Still, that is probably the superior set:
Set 1:
From Hank to Hendrix
Helpless
(Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song)
On the Way Home
(Buffalo Springfield song)
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Love in Mind
(piano)
Birds
(piano)
Mellow My Mind
(banjo)
Are You Ready for the Country
(piano)
Someday
(piano)
Changes
(Phil Ochs cover)
Harvest
Old Man
Set 2:
Goin’ Back
A Man Needs a Maid
(piano)
Ohio
(Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song)
Southern Man
Needle of Death
(Bert Jansch cover)
The Needle and the Damage Done
Harvest Moon
Flying on the Ground Is Wrong
(Buffalo Springfield song) (piano)
After the Gold Rush
(piano)
Journey Through the Past
(piano)
Heart of Gold
Encore:
Comes a Time
Long May You Run
(The Stills-Young Band song)