Saturday 11th June. The O2. Neil Young and the Promise of the Real. So while the rest of the country were experiencing the usual mixture of short lived joy and then subsequent depression of watching England in a major football tournament, the sensible money was going to the O2 to see the legend that’s Neil Young. Given the spate of musical icon deaths in recent months the decision was made to see the 70 year old Mr Young in case more tragedy descends on the music business.
Young has been energised recently by a fresh new band supporting him on this recent tour. We have seen him on a few occasions and this time there’s no big set, oversized amps or too many gimmicks. He enters dressed a peasant sowing seeds on the stage (more of that later), sits down at the piano and proceeds to produce a sublime acoustic set of twenty five minutes or so running through classic such as ‘After the Gold Rush’, ‘Heart of Gold’, ‘Needle and the Damage Done’ and from ‘Hank to Hendrix’ before he’s joined by the band.
The evening’s set was heavily drawn from two albums, ‘Harvest’ and ‘Ragged Glory’ and we were treated to some rarely played tracks such as ‘Alabama’ and 'If ‘I could have her tonight’ from his first album which he’s only played once before and that was the night before.
The theme of the night if there was one was look after the world, fuck corporate America, be good to each other and protect our valuable natural resources. After the opening acoustic set we then launch into two hours of riff tastic jamming with extended renditions of ‘Love and only Love’ and ‘Words’ clocking in at twenty minutes apiece.
What is impressive about Young is his sheer energy. The new band have revitalised him and it’s them who have to keep up with the seventy year old rocker and not the other way around. His voice is also still as strong as ever and we all join in to set closer Fuckin Up and it’s all over. Like a fine wine Neil Young is getting better and long may he keep rockin us.
Keep on hard rockin baby.
Weezer
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