Back from a perfect road
trip to St. Louis. The anchor for this trip was a chance to see Neil Young solo, always a big deal for me.
Thanks to a feature on the nifty new Neil Young Archives site, fans
were able to get great seats to this current run of 6 solo shows
without too much difficulty. Of course an opportunity like this doesn't come
cheap. 20 years ago, I would've argued that Neil tickets were underpriced.
That is no longer the case. Oddly, many comments I saw from fans who
should know better complained not only about the high prices but the
difficulty in obtaining good seats. It's not that hard people. Do
your homework, plug into the 21st century and you will be rewarded.
The “Fabulous Fox”
lives up to its name in every regard. Built by Fox studios in the
1920s, it once was part of an empire of fancy theaters. The Fox in
Detroit is a sister theater to the St. Louis one, both huge (around
4000 seats) and ornate to the extreme. It really is a stunning space. My wife attended several shows at the Fox in Detroit during her time working in the motor city and I was lucky enough to have seen Los Lobos there a few years ago. The St. Louis Fox is very comfortable to navigate and, aside from the merch table, the only bad lines were at the
bar right before showtime and the balcony bathrooms after the show
(pro tip: no waiting in the basement “Gentlemen's Lounge"). Side note: the venue in St. Louis was in the Central West End neighborhood with ample parking nearby. We parked for free less than a block from the venue at a meter that expired at 7 pm – perfect for a 8pm show. As we scooted to the venue in the rain, we walked by a large parking ramp right around the corner from the Fox. Long lines of cars clogged the street in front of the ramp, which was charging $15. Like I said, use your head and it will pay off.
I hadn't seen Neil solo in
a while in person but I have dutifully consumed many audio and video
recordings in recent years. After a recent run of festival and last minute full band shows with POTR and the recently reunited Crazy Horse (with
Nils), this short batch of solo shows seemed like kind of a weird move, even
for a weird dude like Neil. When the show was announced a few months
ago, I looked at my extremely busy summer calendar, saw a gap for the
St. Louis date and pulled the trigger without giving it much thought.
SPOILER AND NEIL NERD
ALERT. The setlist was thrilling from the git go for any Neil fan of
even modest fanaticism. My heart skipped a beat when I heard the
instantly recognizable chords to the brilliant, underrated Buffalo
Springfield tune "On The Way Home" kick off the night. Then, right into "Home Fires," a super deep, obscure track originally slated for the
ill-fated Homegrown album and still unreleased. This was only its 15th known performance, dating back over 40 years, and the first since an impromptu performance by Neil on the 1997 HORDE tour during one of those 10 once
in a lifetime unannounced afternoon pop up solo Neil sets, performed on a small "workshop stage" several hours before the headlining set with Crazy Horse (seeing one
of those sets in Somerset after I had just driven 40 miles like a madman after getting off early from work might be my favorite Neil experience ever). Before
1997, "Home Fires" was performed only at a handful of solo shows in 1992 and at a few CSNY shows on the 74 megatour. Amazingly, this
was my 2nd live "Home Fires," since he also played it at one of the Orpheum shows in Mpls in 1992.
And that was only the
first setlist bombshell. Even rarer still was "There's a World," the theatrical deep cut from Harvest, originally recorded with Jack Nitzsche and the London Symphony Orchestra. This was only its 9th known performance. Initially performed 7 times in 1971, "There's A World" had been in the deep freeze for almost 47 years (the longest interval between Neil song performances?) until it shockingly turned up at Neil's fascinating, chatty homecoming show in a tiny venue in Omemee, Ontario in December 2017 that was thankfully webcast.
I was also thrilled to finally got to hear "Love In Mind" in
person, 47 years after its debut performance. Long a fave amongst the
cognoscenti, this exquisitely beautiful song is Neil at his best. A delicate solo live performance of "Love In Mind" from 1971 was oddly included on the
Time Fades Away album, which consisted mostly of screeching,
discordant, decidedly NOT delicate electric live performances from 1973. Go figure. "Love In Mind" debuted on a 1971 solo tour and made a
single appearance early in the 1973 Time Fades Away tour (evidently the reason for it's inclusion on the album of the same name). It then
disappeared for over 3 decades until being resuscitated for tours in 2008 and 2014.
Also quite unexpected was a solo "Speakin' Out", a song performed less than 3 dozen times, mostly with a full band. This was its 6th ever solo outing (first since November 1992), performed this time on piano.
Hearing just one of these kind of
these rarities is a gift for dedicated Rusties. To be lucky enough to hear 2 or 3 such
performances in the same show - especially at something that you travelled to - is why I've been on the Neil train for 5 decades, traveling far and wide to see him, with a show tally now approaching triple digits.
11 of the 18 songs came from 3
disparate albums: Harvest, Tonight's the Night and 2010's Le Noise (a
consecutive 3 song mini set an hour into the show). The TNT choices
were undoubtedly influenced by the recent archival release of
the 1973 live Roxy album, a fantastic collection and essential purchase. Neil's playing and singing at the Fox were in
typically fine fettle all night. He can't hit as many of the high
notes anymore but I noticed he's playing around with some vocal
dynamics and phrasing to compensate. The inclusion of "Love and War" in
the setlist and Neil's impassioned performance of this profoundly personal song imparted a sense of
gravitas to the proceedings, especially at a show taking place during the kind of troubled times that have moved Neil in the past to respond accordingly. I was
somewhat indifferent to the song (and album) initially but it hit
like a ton of bricks last night, as did all of the Le Noise songs.
Greatly surprising and
welcome were 2 blistering solo electric performances, coinciding with
the 2 most overt, albeit not inflammatory, moments of addressing
politics during the show. "Ohio" was prefaced with a long, moving story of the inspiration for
the song and "Angry World" from Le Noise was perfectly apt and topical
considering current events and Neil's long history of social and political engagement.
A sweet version of "Tumbleweed" performed on a big uke (which he carried on stage at the
beginning of the night, along with a mystery bag; reminded me of a guy going to work) was the only
encore, a perfect capper on a life-affirming night in the kind
of old theater that Neil loves so much.
Oh yeah, no songs on the pump organ, in spite of a few moves in that direction.
Oh yeah, no songs on the pump organ, in spite of a few moves in that direction.
Aside from the setlist,
what was truly unusual and unique was his demeanor and chattiness. He
did the usual pacing and prowling around the stage common to his solo
shows as he goes through the process of deciding the setlist. What
was different – and fascinating – was the apparent verbalization
of this thought process in real time. He acknowledged this early on,
referring to his stage wandering, but, for some reason, he felt
compelled to share what he was thinking with the audience. He talked
about the instruments on stage time and time again: the 19th
century Steinway with the charred bottom that he bought almost 50 years ago and is now being
used on the road for the first time; the white baby grand that was
painted psychedelic on the prompting of his daughter; not one, but 2
acoustic guitars that were given to him by Stephen Stills. He
addressed his crew directly several times in a low key manner,
including one time when he asked for a C harp when the inspiration
for a song struck him. After starting the song and blowing into the
harp for the first time, he stopped and walked over to a table with a
glass of water to “prime” the reeds in new harp. While he was doing this he was talking about “you know how you slap a baby when it's born to get it to
breathe? That's what I'm doing here with this harp,” a pretty far
out analogy if there ever was one. Then, after restarting the song,
he stopped again and asked for a B-flat harp when he realized what
key the song was in. He thanked people for the inevitable yelled song
requests in between songs (fortunately not as bad as I've experienced
before, especially considering so many pregnant pauses during the
evening) but admitted “none of them register.” He talked and
talked and talked. And then talked some more. This was the most talkative Neil in concert I've ever experienced - by a considerable margin. He joked about how
“unprofessional” it was to conduct a show in this scattershot,
rambling fashion and even mentioned the high ticket prices. A review
in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch succinctly summed it up: "It was odd. It was
endearing. It was mesmerizing." Yup.
The only bummer: about 15 minutes into the show I felt sad when I realized that I wouldn't be able to see any of the other shows on this run. After a delightful, way too short 4 days in St. Louis, my Waze app steered me towards the 100% interstate long way route back to MN through central Illinois rather than the usually quicker, more disjointed route through Iowa that we took on the way down. As we approached Rockford on I-39, I saw a sign for the exit to I-90 and Chicago and the next shows at the Auditorium Theater, where I had seen Neil in 1973 with The Santa Monica Flyers and again in 1976 with Crazy Horse. What if we.... it was almost like my traffic app was reading my mind.
- On the Way Home (Buffalo Springfield song) (first performance since 10-26-2014)
- Homefires (15th known performance; first since 7-29-1997; 2nd since 1992)
- Love Is a Rose
- Only Love Can Break Your Heart
- Mellow My Mind (guitjo) (first performance since 10-9-2014)
- Ohio (CSNY song) (electric guitar)
- There's a World (grand piano) (9th known performance; 2nd since 1971)
- Love in Mind (grand piano) (first performance since 10-5-2014
- Are You Ready for the Country? (upright piano)
- Tonight's the Night (baby grand piano)
- Speakin' Out (baby grand piano) (6th known solo performance; first since 11-18-1992)
- Angry World (electric guitar)
- Love and War
- Peaceful Valley Boulevard
- Out on the Weekend
- The Needle and the Damage Done
- Heart of Gold
Encore - Tumbleweed (ukelele) (3rd known performance)
Neil Young
Solo performance
June 28, 2018
Fox Theatre – St. Louis, MO
(photos by Sacred Roots)
