Concert Review : Neil Young

Neil Young's Continental Tour '08 tour rolled into Edinburgh on Sunday 3rd March and it was with some anticipation that we headed through to our capital city.

The advance notices of the tour had highlighted that Young was playing a set with a considerable smattering of old and unreleased songs from some of his now legendary "missing" albums. Ironically, none from the original Chrome Dreams but that is as typical as he seems to get.

Split between an acoustic set and an electric set, he certainly did his best to provide value for the considerable price of the tickets. To be honest, though, I'd have gladly sacrificed his wife's opening set for a further 20-30 minutes of classic Neil. If we're being blunt, Pegi wouldn't have a hope of progressing beyond the bars and club of her locale if left to her own devices and without the obviously good connections.

Young was spectacular in his own quiet way during his acoustic set, and I am pleased to say that his version of Ambulance Blues was well up to its' prior billing. One of his classic songs. The rest of set was split between the familiar (After The Goldrush, Heart Of Gold, Old Man) and the less so (Sad Movies, Try, Love Art Blues) plus some genuine surprises like Harvest and A Man Needs A Maid played with Young going between solo piano and electric strings. It was also intriguing to hear Old Man, a song written by a 24 year old man, being sung now by Young when he is at or near the age of the titular individual. "Old man, take a look at my life - I'm a lot like you are" seems to have different meaning when sung in 1972 from the 2008 version.

The electric set was a little less good largely because the current band just isn't Crazy Horse. Some of the songs were excellent (Oh Lonesome Me, Too Far Gone and No Holding Back being particular standouts) but the Horse classics whilst well-played only seemed to emphasise that Talbot and Sampedro weren't part of the current touring line-up. Not that they were bad, but Crazy Horse are such a force of nature and the players stamp their authority on the numbers that it is always a little challenging to hear them attempted by others (who might be superior players in some objective fashion).

One disappointment from the US leg of the tour was that Bad Fog Of Loneliness and Winterlong had been dropped from the set in favour of Down By The River and Hey Hey My My. Given my previous comments, I would probably have preferred to hear the less well known numbers, and would probably have had a greater appreciation of the band as a consequence.

These, however, are quibbles. Neil Young is one of the supreme artists of our time and part of the thrill is to hear him mix up his considerable repertoire. It's a sign of a true artist that he's willing to take such risks, and also to accept that some things don't quite work as a quid quo pro for finding that others excel.

Haste ye back, Neil