Seems like old times for touring CSNY
By Jon Bream
McClatchy Newspapers
Minneapolis
July, 2006

Stephen Stills wasn't being evasive. He just didn't think he was qualified to explain why Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is calling its summer tour Freedom of Speech '06.

"I wasn't at the meeting," said Stills.

He's since been to CSNY rehearsals and knows that the legendary quartet will perform nearly all the material on Neil Young's new "Living With War" and "every protest song that we ever wrote."

"We're approaching it as the 'Everything You Hate About Liberals Tour,' " Stills said with a chuckle before a recent rehearsal. That probably means "Ohio," "For What It's Worth" and "Rockin' in the Free World," among others.

Stills, 61, is not concerned about the kind of fan backlash the Dixie Chicks experienced because of their outspoken views against President Bush. "You know what you're getting when you show up at our show," Stills said.

The point of Young's album - and the focal point of the CSNY tour - is not subtle.

"Basically, it's, 'We've had enough of Republicans and this administration and this war and the lack of leadership in this country,' " said Stills. "I certainly concur. But I'm the guy saying, 'We're becoming everything we hate about liberals. Be careful.' Still, we're in our 60s - if anybody can speak up, it's us."

"Graham [Nash] has always been outspoken to the point of anarchy. Dave is Dave. Neil is pretty ferocious when he gets his teeth on a whole thing," said Stills, a member of the Democratic National Committee since the 1980s. After the concerts, he will campaign for Democratic candidates, although he knows some of them "may run from me because of this tour."

"It ain't that we're lefties. It's, 'Enough [already].' Putting on a uniform and serving your country is noble, but it is ignoble to throw [soldiers] away the same way as the last four years of Vietnam."

CSNY, which is making its third tour of the '00s, always has been something of a contentious group, but now, Stills says, "the sands of time have worn off the edges."

Stills says Young has changed since his brain aneurysm in 2005 - though not too much. "He's much easier to deal with," he said, but "he still gets fixated on his trips. He's hyper-creative."

Stills thinks that Young, 60, who was born in Canada but has lived in the States most of his life, has just as much right to voice his protest, even though he is not a U.S. citizen.

Stills looks forward to the nightly guitar exchanges he has with Young, his partner in the late 1960s with Buffalo Springfield.

"We make each other better," said Stills, who grew up on blues, folk and Latin music. "They were never guitar battles, they're conversations - very respectful, wait for the other guy to be finished. It's always been pretty amicable."

Stills will reprise his Springfield anti-war hit from 1967, "For What It's Worth," which still resonates today.

"It was the same kind of time," he said, meaning that what the administration said was not consistent with what was really happening. "It's the same kind of disconnect today. In the face of all reason, they're just spouting this blather.

"And our blather is a lot more accurate, I think. But it's still blather."