I went and saw Neil Young Thursday night with the old man in Kansas City at the Sprint Center. Originally was supposed to be Nov 4th last year on election day but it got postponed. And they cut down the seating so they had to readjust my seats. Still got pretty decent overall. Sprint Center's a pretty big monster and quite new space age looking. The worst part was the fact that I'd only had three hours of sleep at most...
Show started at Seven with two opening acts. The first was a band called Everest. They weren't bad, but nothing super spectacular. The lead singer sounded like Bono to me... Had a pretty good sound, but there was one or two too many guys in the group. They played for 30 minutes or so.
Then came the Neville Brothers for 4o minutes. I wasn't real impressed with them. The first song was good, but the rest all seemed the same. Not that much of jazz/funk fan. My dad said they didn't even do Aaron Neville's big hit "Tell It Like It Is."
Finally a little after 9 Neil and his band came on. When I saw him two years ago at the Fox in St. Louis he was solo for the first half, then had the band behind him in the second half. Here they were with him the whole time.About two hours and fifteen minutes of Rock n Roll action. Here's the set list.
Love and Only Love
When You Dance I Can Really Love
Fuel Line
Are You Ready for the Country?
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Pocahantas
Change Your Mind
Cinnamon Girl
Mother Earth
The Needle and the Damage Done
Light a Candle
Heart of Gold
Feel Your Love
Old Man
Hit the Road
Speakin' Out
Tonight's the Night
Down By the River
Get Behind the Wheel
Just Singing a Song
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A Day in the Life
I'd purposely avoided looking at any of his previous shows to see what he was playing this go around. And I'm glad I did as there were several surprises. In the second spot was "When You Dance I Can Really Love", off of After the Gold Rush. And a couple of songs later "Are You Ready For the Country?" As soon as I picked it up when he started pounded on those piano keys I knew it was going to be a great show.
He was playing a lot of material from his new album, Fork in the Road. They were all right, I thought "Just Singing a Song," was good but maybe not in the ultimate slot in the setlist. I know some of the reviews were ragging on them, but there were about the same as some of his other songs that he played that aren't as well known.
Starting with "Mother Earth" he moved from electric to acoustic mode. Here he preformed the Greatest Hits portion, which was...well, great! Even the new song "Light a Candle" and the 'kind of an obscure CSN&Y song, "Feel Your Love" sounded awesome. Then after "Old Man" it was back to the hard grunge rock style.
Young is Jekyll and Hyde. Morphing one minute into the acoustic country folk style after a blazing 15 minute long guitar jam with distortion, high energy and completely turning away from the audience.
Neil didn't talk as much to the audience this time. I think the first time he talked, he apologized for the postponement. He did a little intro the CSN&Y song and he introduced his band, but other than a couple "How are you doin's?" he was pretty quiet.
The crowd was sort of laconic. Before exiting, Chad Cromwell, the drummer, asked, "if we needed caffeine?" Maybe it was the four hours of being there or something, but they were definitely low key. He also had a guy painting on a canvas on an easel. Don't really know why or what he was painting. Just part of the stage I guess. His whole stage setup continued the garage theme.
The only other bad things? The guitar jams can get a little tedious with so many long ones, but that's just Neil. I think its just cool to see a 63 year old up there rocking away. Was sort of surprised we didn't get Rockin' in the Free World. But I looked at some of the previous sets and see he's been mixing it up at every concert on this tour. Usually playing it in the encore, when he does perform it. That was the only thing missing that would have put it over the top.
But we got the Beatles cover, "A Day in the Life," which was good. The fade out of the song is perfect for Neil's style of hard rocking distortion sound. Which culminated with all the strings busted and a note hit on the Xylophone.
Overall, maybe the best concert I've seen. Harder to gauge right after. Still one of the best and no problem with postponing(other than the fact I had to switch shifts at work But that's not his fault). He only played 3 of the same songs he did in St. Louis(and all three were good ones, so it was win-win). I enjoyed the rock songs more too. At the Fox a lot more newer stuff and songs I wasn't as keen on. Here I got a few more "hits" and songs I heard and/or liked more.
I know my dad liked it better. He was cheering and singing along for quite a bit of it. Other reviews here and here
If anyone gets a chance to see him in his current mode, go, it's worth it. Don't know if I will or not. He might have to embark on a solo, with Crazy Horse, big country band or even better with Crosby, Stills and Nash tour and change the format a little.
