I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: July 16, 2015] Neil Young + Promise of the Real

Sarah has always wanted to see Neil Young.  And she finally got to, back in October.  And now here it is just nine months later and she gets to see him again.

I enjoyed his previous show quite a lot, but said I didn’t need to see him again unless he was with a band (which I assumed would be Crazy Horse).  But here he was with a new band (just what does Crazy Horse do in their off years?).  The band was Promise of the Real, which features Lukas Nelson (Willie Nelson’s son) and for this tour also featured Willie’s other son Micah (whom I gather is not usually in the band?).  I knew nothing about POTR, but I did get the new Monsanto album, so I got a sense of what they sounded like.

Speaking of the Monsanto album….  Lyrically it’s strident and a little obvious, but musically it’s really quite good–a lot of variety with some good loose rock.  And when they played it live, where it really loosened up, it sounded even better.

But back to the show.  Sarah and I predicted that he would play the entire Monsanto album, talk a lot about GMOs, and then maybe play a few classics.  We could not have been more wrong.

The show opened (well, actually, the concert opened with a Native American dance which we missed–I gather they were going to march on Washington and asked if they could address the crowd first) with two people planting seeds along the stage.  They put out plants and scattered seeds all over the place (I can’t believe no one slipped on them!  And then Neil came out.  It was like the previous show.  He played a few acoustic pieces on his various instruments:

On piano: “After the Gold Rush” (with the update: “look at mother nature on the run in the 21st century”).  Then on to guitar for “Heart of Gold,” “Long May You Run” and “Old Man.”  Unlike the last show he didn’t switch guitars, I don’t think.  He sounded great–on harmonica and in voice.

Then he sat at his pipe organ for a slow rendition of “Mother Earth.”
He played all of these songs last time, but in a different order.  Once he played this Sarah and I sat down, assuming that the show would stay mellow in some way.

As the organ rang out its last notes, roadies dressed in hazmat suits came on stage and sprayed “chemicals” all over the farmers’ seeds.   It was weird and funny and obvious but enjoyable nonetheless (the roadies sure enjoyed it).  And as the “chemicals” drifted away, they revealed Promise of the Real.

And that’s when Part two of the show started.

Backed by POTR, Neil was still on his acoustic guitar and they ran through a set of mellow/country songs.  And man, did he dig deep into his catalog for songs.  I have just about every Neil record (many I never listen to, of course) and I didn’t realize that these songs were actually his.  Like “Hold Back the Tears” which comes from American Stars and Bars (!).  And then they played some songs that he played solo in October.  But they sounded so different with the backing band–it’s amazing what transformation it was: “From Hank to Hendrix” and “Harvest Moon” sounded great solo but sounded so much bigger and deeper with the band doing harmonies.

And I settled in, assuming that this was going to be a mellow, folky/country evening of music.

He also played “Unknown Legend” (three songs from Harvest Moon).  And then the first of the Monsanto tracks: “Wolf Moon.”  I told Sarah that this was the one song I figured he wouldn’t play, imagining he’d be jamming with POTR. But there it was.  And it worked very well in the set.

And then Neil picked up his electric guitar.  And the band began their rocking section of the show with… “Words (Between the Lines of Age).”  Um, what?  I recognized the song but not really, later I realized it was from Harvest but they totally rocked it up, with solos and everything.  And then they did a big jamming version of “Walk On” (which they jammed for 7 or 8 minutes). And then the rarity “Bad Fog of Loneliness.”  It was so peculiar to have a few songs we knew and then a bunch of songs that were not hits, but certainly familiar.  I imagine that if I was a an old school Neil fan who had seen him dozens of times (the guy behind us had seen him 17 times) this would have been insanely awesome.

Then he finally said something (despite our prediction, he barely talked)–anyone want a coffee?  And I knew it was going to be a Monsanto song.  And so he played three songs in a row from the new album “A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop” which is super catchy and fun with the whistle intro.  “People Want to Hear About Love” which I think is a genius song–a catchy chorus which you can’t help but sing along to even though you are more or less agreeing with the sarcastic sentiment.  And then the rather lovely “A New Day For Love.”

So just as I was ready for a few more Monsanto songs, he played the opening notes of “Down By the River.”  And the crowd went nuts.  And they played this song for over 20 minutes.  There were wicked jamming solos, with Neil facing the drums (where a camera was mounted) and just blasting the hell out of his instrument.  He and POTR huddled together like a football team, jamming with each other.  Then Lukas Nelson would take a lead and then Neil would take a lead.  At one point Micah took a lead and then Neil would come back and sing a chorus of verse and then they would go back to jamming and wailing.  It was one of the most intense live experiences I’ve had as I kept thinking, that’s Neil Young making those sounds like Neil Young makes.  And then I thought–that guy is 69 years old!  (Actually I wasn’t sure exactly, but I knew he was close to 70).

After 20 minute “Down by the River,” the show had to be over, right?  Well, no actually.  There were six more songs after this.  The guys simply did not stop. I mean, I was getting exhausted, I couldn’t imagine how they were doing it.

As a palate cleanser, they played two more Monsanto songs “Workin’ Man” (the one Autumn all the critics like) and I assumed that that would end the show, but no, they played “Big Box.”  And Then he started “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” and they played a jamming 6 or 7 minute version of that too.  Then back to Monsanto Years and what I think is the best song on the new album, “If I Didn’t Know” (which worked even better live).  And since it ends the album, surely it would end the show (by the way, people were just fleeing in droves at this point, unbelievably so given what was coming).  Because then he ended the set (over 2 and a half hours without a break) with a scorching blistering solo-filled version of “Love and Only Love.”

I have to admit I misjudged when he actually started the set so I thought the show was already over three hours long.  But it was way past 11 at this point and I never guessed he would actually do an encore to top it off.

So, here’s where I get to mock the people in our row whose thought must have gone like this: *Neil just played an amazing set, let’s stay to see if he does an encore.  Oh okay, he’s doing an encore.  Oh, it’s only “Cortez the Killer” let’s get out of here.*  Who the hell leaves during “Cortez the Killer?”  Are yo kidding me?  They played a 13 minute slow burning version of Cortez with the song ending in a blistering solo jam session once again (with Lukas Nelson playing the guitar with his teeth (this I admit is the ultimate rock guitar cliche and yet it was really cool to see as I’ve never seen anyone actually do it successfully).  Speaking of rock guitar cliches, Micah also played his guitar with a bow.  It wasn’t always evident in the mix, but when you could hear it provided an eerie backing sound that was very cool.

This was the first time (in recent days anyway) that they played Cortez as an encore.  It seemed like Neil was enjoying himself so much that he wanted to tack that on as well.  And then, just when there was no way he could play any more (it was quarter to 12), they ended with “Cinnamon Girl.” And we went berserk.

I don’t know what time the curfew was but I’m positive they exceeded it.  In fact, they played until about five minutes to midnight.

So this proved to be an amazing show for so many reasons.  The show was chock full of deep cuts, songs I never expected him to play.  It was also shockingly short on “hits” (the ones that people were quietly calling for from behind us).  I also can’t believe they played nearly the entire Monsanto album (and that it all sounded great and loose and ragged).

The guys behind us were pretty sure that they would play “Rockin in the Free World,” because of the whole Trump thing, but nope, he had his own thing going on for this show, and that was alright by me.

There were no speeches or screeds (there were a lot of political booths in front of the stadium when we walked in but we were already late for Band of Horses, so we didn’t get to look at anything), there was just a ton of music.  And I honestly never expected to hear Neil wail and wail and wail like that.  Man he was totally shredding.

And PoTR was awesome.  They had a ton of energy and fed off of Neil perfectly.  The bassist was jumping around, keeping the rhythm steady while the other guys were wailing away.  Micah played some cool solos and sound effects (on his knees for one part fiddling with buttons) an as well as a charango (which was so cool to see even if it was very hard to hear).  The drummer was great, keeping the beat steady and driving.  I felt a little bad for the percussionist as he was really busy but I could barely hear him.

I have never seen Crazy Horse as I said, and while old school fans may think I’m crazy for saying this, I felt like PoTR were, if not equal, at least complimentary to Cray Horse.  They played a ton of styles and were all great.  Not to mention that Lukas Nelson  has said that Neil was always an inspiration to him  It was a perfect pairing.

And it was an unforgettable show.

There’s a few good reviews out there was some great pictures.  I particularly like this one.