"Marlyn Monroe, John Lennon and
(GLASGOW
BELONGS TO) ME"
Neil Young and Crazy Horse,
SECC, Glasgow 20th July 1996
John Williamson
FROM THE GLASGOW HERALD
PERHAPS tellingly, Neil Young's only real dialogue with the crowd is in
musing: "What happened to the Apollo Theater? That was a good place". Maybe
Young's spiritual home is in a venue synonymous with the 70s, but even that fails to fully
explain why his reunion with Crazy Horse failed to spark the same number of highs as when
he was backed by Booker T and the MGs three Years ago at the same venue.
Where the R&B band provided a sharpness to the performance that made it truly
great,
the muted environs of the SECC are rather less suited to the incendiary guitar dueling
between Young and Poncho Sampedro which fills its rafters with some extraordinarily
climactic layers of noise during the likes of Cortez The Killer, Cinnamon
Girl, and Like A Hurricane. Elsewhere, Hey Hey MY MY is more Punk than last week's pretenders, the Sex
Pistols, and Bite The Bullet and Pocahontas are fine representations of his 1970s creative
peak.
It is unfortunate, therefore that Young chooses to reflect little on his equally strong
late 1980s and early 1990s catalogue, choosing Instead to bludgeon his way through
acoustic versions of Needle And Long May You Run. On Saturday night Neil Young wanted to
rock, and subtlety was not on the agenda.
Although still writing prolificallv and inspiring thousands of infinitely less noteworthy
hacks, Young seemed shackled by the presence of Crazy Horse into a performance that looked
backwards more than forwards, inwards rather than outwards. it was,
however, still an enjoyable, if bumpy, ride with more than its share of truly uplifting
moments.
BEFORE us there's an organ and flickering candles, so we must be in church,
right?
Genuflecting to St Neil,the eternal saviour of rock'n'roll, reunited with his rightful
apostles Crazy Horse, praying for deliverance from muddily retro support band Kula Shaker
and awaiting the guitar god made flesh with bated breath.
Young opens with Hey Hey My My and it's a visitation from a higher plane, but it's a while
before the next dispensation of manna..In fact, there's a period of testing in the
wilderness with a strung-out session of alleged guitar pyrotechnics so gruesome that you'd
be forgiven for thinking heretical thoughts.
Aural salvation comes in the form of a wistfully uncomplicated acoustic rendition of
deceptively powerful favorite The Needle and the Damage Done, which does indeed atone for
the damage done and finally shows off Young's familiar quavering voice to the emotional
effect that earlier sound Problems had prevented. Traditionally, Neil Young concerts tread
a fine line between crowd-pleasing hit factory and an almost stubborn loyalty to recent
material, regardless of popularity, and he made no exceptions for Glasgow. The peaks out
numbered the troughs, with Cinnamon Girl, Cortez theKiller and like a Hurricane all
hitting the mark. For some, it was divine visitation, for others just a glimpse of a
higher musical authority.
FROM THE MAN WITH HIS HEAD ON UPSIDE DOWN
A couple of beers to many means we left it way to late for heading out to the meeting
point at Gilmarnock and as we were still a standing area ticket
short of our needs we headed straight from town out to the SECC. On a warm beautiful
summers evening we were greeted by a little English spiv trying to sell us tickets at £30
for a £23 ticket, there turned out to be four English touts operating each with a handful
of tickets and each with as fine an array of tops and T shirts to keep changing into as
Ive seen. We held out a while and got a ticket at face value from a Glaswegian named Pete
(the post office),(good on you Pete my man)
Some while later as we stood outside in the sun, Jim Jarmish and a film crew of three
appeared around the tout we first encountered, this led me to believe that it was a set up
and the guy was an actor playing a tout in one of Neil’s movie japes, being unable to
keep my big nose out I wandered over to the scene, as I approached the tout took off very
quickly into the crowd and the 4 in the crew got into a huddle studying some kind of
tickertape kind of thing. When they broke a bit I got the chance to ask the camera man if
this was more of Neil’s home movies? yes he said its for the Archives."It wont
be long now" I said to him and he just laughed and assured me they are working on it
all the time, as I turned to go I told him "Archives be damned that’s what I
say","is that so tell me about it". The camera was switched on and I got to
blabber into the archive for five minuets or so, a bit about Aurora
Borealis, a bit of
Neil history and a bit about the Horse, and my five minuets of fame were at an end. The
only other bit of filming I witnessed was a fine rendition of the Needle and the Damage
Done performed by four guys who turned out to be from Dundee, well out their box and
complete with dum de dum's where the C run is, wonderful stuff boys.
The entrance to the venue felt more like an airport foyer rather than the home of the best
rock n'roll gig in town, our mingling in the bar area for a while resulted in uncovering a
group from Inverness who had traveled their 300 mile round trip to see the man, and a guy
from just along the coast from us here in Durness who would have chalked up some 700 miles
by the time he made it home, as well as a chance to sing along with the Dundee four to Old
Laughing Lady and give them a version of For The Turnstiles in return. The announcement
that the show would begin in 5 minutes started a stamped.
Within the curtain walls which frame the arena we found ourselves to the right of the
stage about 10 meters from the speaker banks, with a great view across the stage perfect.
The unmistakable riff of Hey Hey My My lifted the top of my head off and other than the
image of Billy and Frank sharing a mike at the far side of the stage this song passed in a
blur of adrenaline, Bite The Bullet and Barstool blues confirm its not just another
stadium set, Big Time (a great song )surpasses the album version. Then the unfamiliar
chords which lead into "Aurora Borealis the icy sky........"
wonderful, if
anything captures the typical Crazy Horse "sound" on the night it was
this,
beautiful spaces between the noise and a great melody to hang their vocals
on. Perhaps it
was the second pass of the refrain that Neil sang, Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon and Me, The
bootleg will bear out whether this was truly the case or I’m clean off my rocker and
hearing things. The monster that is Slipped Away seemed to drift off into some sonic loop
which to me got to the point it created an almost cocteau twins vibe with the vocals
playing a part of the overall sound rather than any sort of focal point.
The 3 song acoustic set was a fine surprise no Heart of Gold and thankfully no Sugar
Mountain Long May You Run is a fine sing along. Blistering along for the next 3 songs with
Neil saying "here's another song just like the last one" between Cinnamon Girl
and Fucking up, and I did detect a rustish reggaeish feel to the ending of
Cortez. Music
Arcade hit the spot a 5 minuet chill out with the chorus sang enough times to get it into
the crowds unconscious, this will be a tune that will last. Sure I read on the net about
the Like A Hurricane experience, but what you forgot to say was that if you were standing
in front of the speakers in a smallish (compared to festivals) hall Billy's pounding on
the bass strings hurts! the rumble was in your toes and in your nose. I want to hear this
again, the strobe effect added to the overall dynamics and the string thrashing handed out
by Neil to Ole Black guaranteed it had made its last appearance of the
night.
The three encore numbers were played on the gold top, at the close of Welfare Mothers Neil
hung over the edge of the stage making motions like he was juggling a pair of very large
breasts, I think this may have been a reference to a young lady who had climbed up on
someone’s shoulders right in front of the stage and was giving it
heaps. Danger Bird
a great song and a delight to hear it live. Then a quick pogo to the fast sections of
Sedan Delivery, a look from Neil over his left shoulder and it stopped dead and they were
gone.
Leaving me to float out of the aircraft hanger singing "Have you ever been lost, Have
you ever been found out, Have you ever been all alone, at the end............"
Ian Campbell
The man with his head on upside down.
