"Secrets from CSN&Y rehearsals"

Toronto Sun
Novemver 26, 1999
By JANE STEVENSON.

Six days into rehearsals for the upcoming Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young reunion tour, at least one member of the legendary foursome is sounding positively ecstatic.

"I cannot tell you how wonderful it sounds," says Graham Nash, 57, down the line from his L.A. home. "You don't know me -- I'm not a man that brags. I am so thrilled with how it sounds. Everybody else in the band is too. We were doing Southern Man the other day and, man, it sounds fantastic! I'm so completely excited about this."

CSN&Y's current rehearsals, which are closed to family, friends and even managers, are taking place in a converted building on the San Mateo, Calif., fairgrounds, just south of San Francisco. Nash says they've built both acoustic and electric stages -- both sets are planned for the live shows -- and have been joined by Joe Vitale on drums, Mike Finnigan on keyboards and Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass. Dunn formerly played with Booker T. and the MG's.

"No one's getting in," says Nash, who says the band will eventually move to a Cleveland location for five dress rehearsals before the Jan. 24 tour launch in Detroit.

Other people are a distraction, he feels. "Your friends come and you go, 'Oh, well let's play Teach Your Children for them 'cause it's really great.' It's too distracting. We have a skeleton crew taking care of us. We do not have our full crew. We just need the important people there."

Nash will say they're rehearsing about 50 songs as CSN&Y hit the road together for the first time in 25 years following their recently released new album, Looking Forward.

"We have now analyzed every single concert that we've done. The average concert has been about 23 songs, so we figure if we learn about 50, we'll be able to chop and change our program," says Nash. He doesn't rule out a second show being added in Toronto, where the ACC show sold out in an impressive 24 hours.

"I talked to our managers and we've sold out 72% of the entire tour so far, and it's several months away," says Nash. "It does not surprise me. It's pleasantly gratifying. People love this band."

As for set lists, he confirms the hits will be mixed in with the older songs that everyone has been waiting a quarter-of-a-century to hear again.

"We started out by learning the album that we'd just done, the new stuff, and a couple of things that we've written since the album. So they're really new. No one's heard them. And then we said, 'Well, we gotta do Southern Man, we've got to do Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Southern Cross, Teach Your Children. And we just keep filling in like that."

Nash estimates CSN&Y will wind up playing for about two-and-a-half hours, and he's not sure yet if his legs, which he broke recently in a boating accident in the waters off his Hawaiian home, will be able to withstand that amount of time upright.

"I don't know yet," says Nash, whose leg casts came off two weeks ago. "But I certainly intend to walk out there. I'm not shuffling out there. There will be a tall stool in case I need to just relax for a second."

Standing or sitting, Nash couldn't be more enthusiastic.

"Neil (Young) and Stephen (Stills) are getting on like a house on fire right now," he says.

"They are picking up where they should have been in Buffalo Springfield, had that thing stayed together, in terms of their relationship. They're completely unique guitar players, totally different, and yet when they play together, when I stand in the middle of that gigantic sound, and hear Stephen and Neil conversing with each other through their guitars -- it's a tremendous feeling!"