I’ve been a Neil Young fan for decades. One of my fondest concert memories was seeing him in a small club in Northern California, totally unannounced, just working out the kinks on new music with his band.
Trans is an interesting album. I actually like “Sample and Hold.”
For a look at how his whims and music change, check out these two set lists from the 80s. I was at both shows, and they were night and day different:
1984-10-24, Pacific Amphitheater, Costa Mesa, California, USA
w/ The International Harvesters
Are You Ready For The Country? / Hawks And Doves / Comes A Time / Bound For Glory / Hillbilly Band / Heart Of Gold / Amber Jean / Silver & Gold / Motor City / Too Far Gone / Roll Another Number / Southern Pacific / The Needle And The Damage Done / Sugar Mountain / Helpless / California Sunset / It Might Have Been / Let Your Fingers Do The Walking / Soul Of A Woman / Field Of Opportunity / Old Man // Powderfinger / Get Back To The Country / Are You Ready For The Country?
1986-11-15, Pacific Amphitheater, Costa Mesa, California, USA
w/ Crazy Horse
Mr. Soul / Cinnamon Girl / When You Dance I Can Really Love / Down By The River / Too Lonely / Heart Of Gold / After The Gold Rush / Inca Queen / Drive Back / Opera Star / Cortez The Killer // Sample And Hold / Computer Age / Violent Side / Mideast Vacation / Long Walk Home / The Needle And The Damage Done / When Your Lonely Heart Breaks / Around The World / Powderfinger / Like A Hurricane / Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) // Prisoners Of Rock ‘n’ Roll
“The Needle and the Damage Done” was much more…intense when he did it with Crazy Horse.
I like the Crazy Horse albums. My favorite is “Year Of The Horse” but I realize it’s not that popular. Love “Ragged Glory”. Also love “Freedom” but I know it’s not Crazy Horse.
I followed him up until mid-80s, I liked his early stuff the best. I caught the Rust Never Sleeps tour with the giant speakers and Jawa roadies at the Cow Palace. Also saw him super up close at the Saddle Rack in San Jose in 1984, we were at a table right in front of the stage. A couple years after that I saw him and some friends at the first Bridge Concert.
On The Beach was a profoundly significant album at the time, and no less so now. I’ve been a NY fan since Springfield. Broken Arrow is iconic. I’m so happy to learn you’ve discovered and come to appreciate him. He is to songwriting what Picasso is to painting. I certainly prize him more highly than Dylan (who contradicted his entire schtick when he accepted the Nobel - some subculture, eh?) The only other songwriter I hold in such high esteem is Joni Mitchell.
BTW, as most of you know, he has released his music and pulled it back from streaming sources a few times. A lot of it is back (at least on Spotify and Amazon if you have a Prime membership).
I loath to admit it, but I was an ‘Assistant Manager’ in a mall Radio Shack. All the responsibility, but no pay, but I digress. One thing I could do, was dictate what music was played. It just came out and I had Ragged Glory in heavy rotation, at an inappropriate volume for the mall. I was okay with it.
Years later, I worked in a cube farm and there was a very nice, but somewhat naïve and gullible middle-aged lady. She was a big Neil fan, but didn’t really know too much about him. He came up in conversation once, and I rolled with it. I spun the hugest yarn about how his ranch/recording studio needed to be fumigated for termites, and how he contacted my mom, who just happened to own 63k acres of a working ranch complete with ‘Natural Wood’ equestrian center (because he liked the sound of the wood- I filled the story with all kinds of this bullshit), full housing for crews out in the middle of Nowhere, Nevada. All lies.
Anyway, I convinced her that Neil rented the place for two months, came out to practice for an upcoming tour with Crazy Horse, and we hung out, drank beer, rode dirtbikes and horses and generally had all sorts of fun. Went into detail about how Frank was a nasty Sum’ Bitch. I’ve never made up so many lies in such a short time ever before or since. But it was fun just to watch Sally eat it up.
Sometime in my late teens I was out for a drive, kind of wandering around woodsy northern NJ. It was a beautiful fresh spring day, sunny, no worries, simply riding this great feeling that came from I don’t know where. **Decade **was the soundtrack for that wonderful afternoon.
Not to mention, he’d already done an interview with AARP’s magazine, and appeared on their cover. If you’re gonna slam him that way, there’s your target.
It’s a Neil night. Drinking a few beers with my brother and having a great time. This song, After Berlin, was played one time, in Berllin in 1982. It is one of his greatest songs, and very few people know it. Thus, this post.
