With pipe organ vocal harmonies and the shrill of an
electric guitar, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Sunday night underscored
the timelessness of peace and protest.
Perhaps the most famous set of consonants in popular
culture, CSNY Sunday night performed at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
in Sullivan County. The multi-million dollar amphitheater sits on the site
of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which all four musicians played
37 years ago this week.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the roughly three
hours of music the quartet delivered to a sold-out crowd of 16,800 was the
relevance in 2006 of songs written decades ago. These songs — "Find
the Cost of Freedom" and "For What It's Worth" among them
— were penned in protest of tumultuous times that included the Vietnam
War and a military crackdown on civilian protesters.
As CSNY sang the quiet and haunting "Find the Cost of
Freedom," large video screens showed the pictures — thousands of
them — of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
"For What It's Worth" could be the battle cry
for Iraq War protesters as much as an anthem for those against the Vietnam
War.
While engaged in an electric guitar duel with Neil Young,
Stephen Stills sang, "What a field day for the heat/A thousand people
in the street/Singing songs and carrying signs/Mostly say, hooray for our
side."
'Tin soldiers and Nixon'
The unmistakable opening riff for "Ohio" brought
the crowd to its feet. That song is about the fatal shooting in 1970 of
Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard and criticizes
former President Richard Nixon.
The politics were over-the-top Sunday night, and
well-received.
But anchoring the evening was the musicianship. The vocal
harmonies of Crosby and Nash sounded as solid as they did four decades ago.
And Stills and Young played their guitars with the enthusiasm of
15-year-olds at a high school battle of the bands.
Two out of the dozens of highlights: Nash and Crosby
singing simple backup vocals as Young plunked on an old, worn, upright
piano during "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"; and "Treetop
Flyer," an acoustic guitar duet featuring Stills and Young.
John W. Barry can be reached at jobarry@pough keepsiejournal.com.
