Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Neil over Europe pt. 2: electric Young

As promised, here are some highlights from the electric part of the shows Neil Young played on his European tour recently. After about an hour of songs performed on acoustic guitar or piano, it was time to get that Gibson Les Paul - aka Old Black- out of its case and let it rip. With help from Ben Keith on pedal steel, lap steel and guitar, Rick Rosas on bass and Ralph Molina on drums, Young showed he could still make one hell of a racket.

It was not all noisy riffing and lenghty guitar solo´s however: just take the exquisite reading of Oh Lonesome Me for instance. Some great harp there too. And that old campfire dopesong Roll Another Number still had that perfect laidback country feel. Select audiences were treated to a second encore, introduced by a gong-beating character in a pasha costume. What followed was the surfy instrumental The Sultan, a song Young recorded way back in ´63 with his first band the Squires. I know at least one guy who left before it was played, as he thought the concert had already ended...

Neil Young - Spirit Road (live Amsterdam 20-2-´08) MP3
Neil Young - Oh Lonesome Me (live Antwerp 11-2-´08) MP3
Neil Young - Roll Another Number (live London 11-3-´08) MP3
Neil Young - The Sultan (live Amsterdam 20-2-´08) MP3

2 comments:

Chris Jackson said...

Thanks for this. I was at the second show in Manchester - never considered whether it was worth the money, it was brilliant. Having Tonight's The Night in the encore contrasted well with the intensity of No Hidden Path, which was the closer before. He did The Sultan as a second encore. I also liked your post on Shake Sugaree. The Fred Neil version is one of his great performances - the Dylan version always seems to me to point to Fred's version.

Unknown said...

Neil Young is the only person I'd pay that much money to see.

Thanks for this stuff too.