neil young & crazy horse - london o2 17th june 2013

You can spot a Neil Young audience a mile off – lots of check shirts or old Neil Young t-shirts, lots of bald heads, lots of facial hair (mainly white). I felt very youthful…

Los Lobos were the support act – really good too. They were much heavier than I was expecting, playing some excellent bluesy rock with a Tex/Mex twist, and yes they did play "La Bamba", but a very slow pounding version.

No sooner had they left the stage, at about 8.25, then Neil’s roadies appeared. Dressed in white lab coats and wearing Einstein wigs they scurried about the stage gesticulating wildly and generally being very entertaining. The stage set was the traditional Crazy Horse set – the giant speakers (which at this point were covered by giant packing cases) and a giant microphone centre stage. As the lights went down the Beatles’ "A Day In The Life" was pumped over the PA and other roadies wearing hi-viz jackets and hard hats began winching the cases off the giant speakers.

As that monumental final chord rolled across the O2 Neil and the band lined up on stage with all the road crew and the national anthem played out. Neil took his hat off and put his hand on his heart. They’ve been doing this all tour, with the national anthem of the relevant country. Much of the O2 actually sang along, and it was oddly rather moving.

Then Neil strapped on Old Black and hit a super massive chord. It was simply a HUGE wave of sound. And we were off with "Love And Only Love".

For most of the songs Neil, Frank (Poncho) Sampedro and Billy Talbot just huddled together in from of Ralph Molina’s drum riser. Heads down, playing like their lives depended on it. Sometimes Neil would wander across the stage, seeming to follow his guitar, sometimes he’d stomp hard on his various pedals and create even more distortion, sometimes Poncho would do a little jumping up and down, which at his age (and with his rather bulky size) may not have been too wise. Poncho in fact has a mane of snow white hair and a white beard and if you stuck him in a red suit he’d make a great Father Christmas! Billy Talbot’s wild curly hair is rather more tamed these days too, and he wears little half moon glasses which gives him the air of an elderly professor, but he still plays the biggest bass. I couldn’t really see Ralph Molina very well but his drumming was spot on all night, simple, basic even, but perfect for Crazy Horse. Neil, in his black hat, black shirt and black jeans seemed to be glowering at first, but as the show went on he seemed to loosen up and during a number of songs he had a huge grin on his face – it seemed like he was sharing jokes with Poncho and Billy, usually mid song. And the solos went on forever. There’s something magical about Neil’s soloing. Technically it’s probably all the place but the way he uses volume and distortion and someone creates pure music from it, is astonishing.

"Powderfinger" was second – what a song. Then two from the new album – the title track followed by "Walk Like A Giant" which was simply incredible. The song itself is long, but the ending must have taken up nearly ten minutes, Neil and Poncho and Billy huddled down and wave upon wave of feedback and noise rolled out. The scientist / roadies set up fans and threw leaves and litter which blew across the stage – this created a genuinely apocalyptic atmosphere. The noise got lower, punctuated by stray drum shots and it felt like we were in middle of some terrible devastation. A final monumental blast from Old Black triggered a rainstorm on the big screen at the side of the stage over which we got the ‘No Rain’ chant from Woodstock. Eventually it faded to quiet and Neil was alone on the stage with an acoustic, and his harmonica rack. 

We then had a handful of acoustic songs as Neil wandered around the stage singing "Comes A Time", "Blowin’ In The Wind", the first live outing since 1999 for the beautiful "Red Sun" (from Silver And Gold) and two lovely new songs - "Hole In The Sky had some great harmonies from Billy, and for "Singer Without A Song" Neil sat at an upright piano as Poncho added some acoustic guitar. This song is a really lovely ballad which is about a girl who’s lost her way, and as the song progressed a girl walked across the stage dragging a guitar case, pausing and sighing theatrically and looking forlorn. It all seemed very filmic. She had lots of tattoos and her hair was done in a way that made me realise that the song just had to have been inspired by Amy Winehouse.

Then it was electric guitars again for a stunningly good "Ramada Inn". Followed by "Cinnamon Girl and "F*!%in' Up" which was fantastic – that riff was enormous! Then the song broke down half way through to allow Poncho his bluesy call and response bit as we all had to chant "you’re a f*!% up" over and over while Neil just grinned his head off. It was oddly cheesy, but huge fun and after a while of doing this Neil just ground out that riff again and we finished off the song. A cracking "Mr Soul" lead into "Hey Hey My My" which was another incredible performance and another very long ending. And that was it. They’d been onstage for just over two hours. And we’d had just 14 songs!

The cases began to be lowered over the giant stacks, but then the scientists waved their arms about and the winches went back up. Down from the rafters came a small keyboard (it had little wings on it…) and I knew that they’d be playing "Like A Hurricane" as Crazy Horse use a keyboard for no other song! Sure enough it was "Hurricane" time. I was so delighted – just what I’d come to see – Neil Young and Crazy Horse playing "Like A Hurricane" – it doesn’t get much better than this! Knowing how strict they are with time keeping in London I was surprised though – I was expecting the show to finish at 11 and they began "Hurricane" at five to… After about 10 minutes a scientist roadie ran out and held a bit of paper in front of Neil. It must have said ‘wrap it up NOW’ as Neil turned to the band and played a huge downward chord which brought the song to a rather sudden ending. Then he thanked us all and wished us all a good ride home and then launched into "Roll Another Number (For The Road)". After that he spoke again and said that, as we were such a good looking audience (!) we deserved another song! So we had a rare outing of "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere"! Just as they started the song he had a funny grin on his face and said something like ‘I can hear managers and officials getting their calculators out now…’ so I guess he was going to be fined for running over, but it meant we had one of the longest and most varied sets of the tour so far.

As you may have guessed, I loved every second of the show – but there were quite a few who left before the end and I’ve read reports of people complaining about other shows. If you get a chance look up the reviews of the Dublin show – loads people there moaning about the self indulgent guitaring and the lack of ‘nice’ songs like "Heart Of Gold"… I reckon that the grumpy old buzzard would be very happy with comments like that… This was a Neil Young And Crazy Horse show – self indulgent guitaring and long drawn out feedback drenched noisefest endings is what they’ve been doing since 1969, and it’s what I came for! Complaining about that is like going to see Motorhead and then complaining that they were a wee bit loud… Still I can’t imagine that Neil cares one little bit – indeed the whole show seemed to me to be about Neil enjoying himself with his buddies – he doesn’t really care what the audience thinks, and half the time he seemed unaware that there was an audience at all, he was so lost in his own world. I get the strong impression that this tour may well be a last hurrah for the Horse. They are all getting on and to play this music at their age must be so tiring. Neil did say to us - ‘it’d be nice to see you again some time, if you’re still around, and if we’re still around…’ But if it is the last time they tour, then what a tour to go out on. Not resting on their laurels, not playing a snoozefest ‘hits’ show, not doing what people expect and still provoking enough of a reaction and irritating enough of the audience to make some of them walk out! Gotta love the Horse.

Long may they run.

laurie anderson musings

Looking at a few vids on youtube recently I discovered that some kind soul has upped the whole of Laurie Anderson's movie Home Of The Brave - the document of her 1985 tour, and a film that I’d never seen.

I have now. 
And it’s absolutely great – much better than the rather short soundtrack album (on which half the songs have been re-recorded in the studio anyway), and it’s brilliant to see Laurie being so very active, rather than the lecture-style she has adopted in more recent years. And Adrian Belew is so chirpy, as always, a great bonus to have him on stage.

The drum pads all over her body are cool, the dancing / choreography is cool, the songs are cool, the whole thing (in spite of a few dodgy 80s fashions / hair) is so very very cool. Hell, even William Burroughs crops up, being all decrepit and croaky. The projections and the backdrops are great, but I especially like the choreography – everything on stage is so perfectly placed, perfectly thought out. And there’s a really funny bit when Laurie phones her keyboard player, just across the stage to talk about what they’re going to do next.

You get the sense that had Laurie been that little bit more famous then Home Of The Brave could have been her Stop Making Sense and cemented her image in the minds of the general public. Then again, she’d probably have hated that. Apparently Home Of The Brave is unavailable on DVD which is a terrible shame.

With a nifty little ‘capture the sound off youtube vids’ gizmo that Lucy helped me find I have indeed captured the sound of the show and split it into individual tracks. Of the 18 or so songs, only four are the same recordings as on the soundtrack album, so the film versions are really worth having. "Smoke Rings" wins the prize as cracking rediscovery of the day. Laurie and the singers act out a game show - in Spanish. What a beautifully mad song!

"Que es mas macho - lightbulb o schoolbus?"
"….Uh… lightbulb?"
"No! Lo siento. Schoolbus es mas macho que lightbulb".

It’s brilliant. No idea why, but it just is.

Plus I’ve found a few more rare tracks on youtube – some very interesting pieces from the Homeland period. First up is “Mambo and Bling” which was available only at 2008 concerts and is kind of a dry run for “Another Day In America” – narrated by Fenway Bergamot, some of the lines actually crop up in the Homeland track. The b side of “Mambo” is called “Behind The Screen” and is an instrumental – all moody violins and spooky keyboards and it’s wonderful. Then there’s the b side of the “Only An Expert” single – “Pictures and Things” is again rather like “Another Day In America” and picks up many of the lines from “Mambo” that weren’t recycled into “ADIA”.  Together all three of these lengthy Fenway tracks have a few overlaps, but all have some fascinating lines of their own, and I just love the mood that’s generated by the combination of the Voice of Authority and those ever so sad violins and keys.

There’s also an amazing version of "Another Day In America" from the Jimmy Fallon talk show in the US. Laurie is dressed as Fenway, the voice of authority, just like on the cover of Homeland, and she looks really freaky. And she’s backed by a guy playing the biggest saxophone I’ve ever seen. It must be as tall as he is. It’s incredible.

the velvet underground and nico

A bit late to the party I know, but I've been listening to The Velvet Underground And Nico - the umpteenth reissue with all sorts of bonus tracks...

And this time, just to confuse everyone, there's a double disc, just like the last double disc from a few years ago, but with different bonus tracks. AND there's also a Mega Sized Box Set with the Valleydale Ballroom gig from November 1966, the original recordings from Scepter Studios in April 1966, and some tracks from a rehearsal, one of the very first with Nico, recorded at the Factory in January 1966. Add to this the mono and stereo versions of the album, plus the single versions and Nico's Chelsea Girl album and you have a Mega Sized Box Set containing an awful lot of stuff that we’ve all bought many times before. A sneaky FLAC download has revealed that, as I thought, there’s only a small amount of stuff that is strictly ‘new’.

Let’s start with the fabled Scepter Studios acetate. These are the first recordings for the album. And so it’s been treated a bit like the Holy Grail for VU fans. Apart from "Sunday Morning" which was recorded much, much later, pretty much the whole album was recorded at Scepter in mid April 1966. Tom Wilson apparently later oversaw a new mix of these tracks which is what ended up on the album, but essentially the Scepter Acetate IS the debut album, just hissier and less clear. Three tracks originally taped at Scepter were totally re-recorded for the album a month later - "Heroin", "Waiting For The Man" and "Venus In Furs" – which means that the Scepter versions are new to my ears, but otherwise listening to a de-clicked, de-hissed recording is not worth the effort when the pristine Mono version in this box set gives you mostly the exact same tracks. The only other difference is that "European Son" on the album was edited down from the nine minutes plus version recorded at Scepter, but do you really need three more minutes of guitar noise? I certainly don’t.

FWIW the original Scepter versions of the re-recorded songs are inferior to the remakes and clearly the Velvets made the right call in re-recording these songs. AND, a couple of the ‘alternative’ tracks on the Stereo disc are actually the Scepter recordings nicely remastered and mixed into stereo (so we have the longer "European Son" and the un-used "Heroin" as bonus tracks for example, even though they are also on the Demos disc but in Mono and less clear!)

So, basically, apart from a couple of tracks the Scepter acetate is a bit of a wash out.

The January 1966 rehearsal is quite good fun, and is surprisingly good quality, but ultimately it’s the Velvets mucking around and jamming with the only notable track being Nico attempting to sing "There She Goes Again" and proving conclusively that she’s entirely wrong for that track. But really, how often will you want to play these songs? A couple of times perhaps, but that’s it, they’re not that interesting. .

The Valleydale Ballroom gig is the only complete Exploding Plastic Inevitable gig, and one of only a couple of live recordings where Nico sings with the band. The gig is bookended by two lengthy half hour improvs which feature Nico wailing tunelessly at times. "It Was A Pleasure Then" on Chelsea Girl was an attempt to capture some of this free-form improv style. But if, like me, you are one those people who finds even eight minutes of tuneless warbling to be irritating, then "Melody Laughter" and "The Nothing Song" will drive you to despair. The rest of the gig finds the Velvets playing most of the debut album, and they play it competently, but that’s about it. It’s surprisingly low key, everything is professional and very very safe. No surprises at all, with virtually every song sounding just like the record. So again, how often will this get an airing? Not often. Plus, despite the best efforts of the audio restoration boffins it’s still a fairly ropey audience recording from 46 years ago, so it’s never going to sound that good. This show has been booted loads of times over the years and it sounds better now that it ever has; it’s perfectly listenable, but it’s still muffled, muddy and murky.

Chelsea Girl sounds good though – cleaner, sharper than my now very old CD, and I’d not got the Mono version of the VU&N album before, which is very sharp and some songs undoubtedly sound better in Mono, with some noticeable mix differences too.

So, the Mega Box Set actually includes very little that is genuinely new and worth having especially if you've already bought the VU&N album many time before. If you've not already got this record, then where have you been since 1967? Go out right now and get the double disc version. It's the best it has ever sounded and contains the Scepter / rehearsal material for good measure.