Neil Young

Rust Never Sleeps, but Sometimes It Naps

By Jeff Katz

My ambivalence towards Neil Young is mirrored by my mixed emotions to go to Albany’s Palace Theatre for the first show of his “Twisted Road” solo tour. The idea of driving over an hour in the rain, followed invariably by the pitch black and sleepy late night return home takes much of the fun out of the event. But off we went, my 17-year-old son and me.

We got there early enough, we thought, a full two hours before the 8 o’clock start. Walking out in the cold rain for a place to eat proved to be a challenge. It would’ve been easy to eat off site, and then drive to the Palace, but the anxiety of searching for a parking spot as show time (or game time) approaches is one of my least favorite feelings. Gotta get there early and park, food be damned! We ended up sitting at a bar. Good enough.

Young’s opener on this tour is Bert Jansch. Jansch is no two-bit unknown. He’s a pivotal figure in 1960s’ British folk, part of the great Pentangle and huge influence on Donovan and Jimmy Page. You know that acoustic bit on Zeppelin’s first album, “Black Mountain Side”? Well, it’s such a rip-off of Jansch’s recording of “Blackwaterside” that Bert was encouraged to sue the band. He probably would have won (as Willie Dixon did when he sued for credit and royalties, and settled out of court, for the band’s lifting of his tune “You Need Love” for their own “Whole Lotta Love”), but Jansch just didn’t have the funds to go up against the deep pocketed metal men.

On the road with Neil

During Jansch’s opening set, some dude kept yelling “Neil!” at every opportune moment of low volume. It was a strange call and would vary: “Where’s Neil?” “Come on Neil,” “Neil.” It wasn’t your standard taunting; it had a sense of desperation and confusion, like a baby perplexed by a game of peek-a-boo. Without the clear presence of the headliner, this screaming nut job seemed truly fearful that Neil wasn’t there. Was he mentally disturbed, rude or drug-addled?

I’ve found Neil Young fans to be certifiably crazy. There was the one who told me, “When you think about it, Neil Young is better than Bob Dylan.” That’s like stating, unequivocally, that mud tastes better than pizza. Then, there was the guy next to me at a December 2008 show, who out of the blue loudly announced, “I came for the sugar cookies.” (More on that via the link below).

Jansch put on a solid performance and, after an inexplicably long delay (after all, there wasn’t much of a set change with Jansch sitting in a chair alone with a guitar), Neil Young strolled on stage slowly and took a seat. After a series of false starts, the show took off in earnest with an acoustic version of “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue),” followed by “Tell Me Why” and “Helpless.” Then, a trio of mind-numbingly awful new songs sucked the enthusiasm from the proceedings. Young’s recent originals just plain suck. The last of this mini-set, “Love and War” brought some excitement back.

It was drugs. Mid-way through “Love and War,” the Event Staff came and got the yelling dude, who had continued to cry for Neil, even after he appeared. His female companion was ticked off, struggling and fighting off security, who were more than happy to carry her away. They both paraded by me, she pissed off, he on another planet. There’s $260 down the drain.

Neil's Garage

Is there another major figure of the rock era with such an abundance of crap in their catalog as Neil Young? It’s gotta be 50 percent lousy. The 1980’s were a full decade of awful records, until the brief resurgence in 1989 and 1990 with the double shot of Freedom and Ragged Glory. Then, mostly garbage. His best albums of the last twenty years came in 2006 and 2007 and were releases of early 1970’s concerts.

Momentum was regained with a switch to electric guitar and rousing versions of “Down by the River” and “Ohio,” but when Young sat down at the upright piano and pounded out “Leia,” a song for his granddaughter (I assume), I wished I was somewhere else. I couldn’t even muster polite applause. Dreadful, but the stoned and ‘shroom-filled went wild.

Again, redemption came with a classic, “After the Gold Rush,” played on a small pump organ. The staging was lovely with keyboards spaced from left to right, cigar store Indian looming between. Pianos and organ were under the glow of  the best lamps I’ve seen the Talking Heads “Stop Making Sense” tour.

At this point, even Neil Young got fed up with the incessant calling of his name and songs.

“I know, I know,” he said with exasperation and, with a nod to a song he didn’t play, “64 and there’s so much more.” Then he launched into my own favorite, “Cortez the Killer,” and all was right with the world. A scorching “Cinnamon Girl” and that was all she wrote for the show proper.

His encore began with, “Walk with Me.” Do you remember Dan Aykroyd’s old SNL character Leonard Pinth-Garnell? He was host of “Bad Cinema” and used to say things like, “That wasn’t so good, was it?” Well, that came to mind. Then, as on the original album Rust Never Sleeps, he ended where he began, “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” electrified. Nicely done.

As he strummed his Gretsch White Falcon at the onset of the encore, Neil Young spoke.

“It’s amazing how they’re all exactly the same. It’s the same song over and over again.”

That sums it up for me. There’s brilliance and boredom, original songs and formulaic songs. As always a mixed bag and I ended the night the same as I began, not quite sure what I make of Neil Young.

http://katzkomments.blogspot.com/2008/12/semi-comfortable-old-rocker.html