03
Mar
2004
Neil Young and Crazy Horse will be performing this Sunday at The Mark. The show is set in a more intimate theatre style seating of 5,700 and is in support of their 2003 release of Greendale. (As of this writing only 500 seats are left.) Since the album came out last year, I've been saying to anyone who will listen, "Have you heard Neil Young's latest album, Greendale?" And, if they will suffer my rant, I'll always inform them that, while the album certainly requires multiple continuous listenings before you actually arrive in Greendale, it's well worth the ride. I'll go on with, "Greendale will have the staying power that the Grateful Dead's Working Man's Dead does 34 years after it was released." That's when some will scoff at me, saying that was a tall order and besides, they heard Greendale was another "concept album" and thus just another one of Neil Young's idiosyncratic self-indulgences.
While this Sunday's concert will feature what some in the music press have coined, Young's "revamped rock opera", complete with characters on stage, props and multi-media messages, the music and lyrics on Greendale is golden Neil Young.
Greendale is a ten-song rock album of narratives that share many common characters, all who live within a virtual coastline town called Greendale. There are familiar Young themes of angels, artists, war, media, crime, religion, ecology, and politics. Characters like Sun Green, Cousin Jed, Carmichael the Cop, and Earl & Edith Green are woven throughout the album. There's the Double E Ranch and the town jail where the Devil lives.
Does this make it a "concept album"? If it does, so what? To be honest, for the first couple of weeks that I listened to this album over and over, I didn't even pay attention to any of the drama unfolding in the tales. The easy beats and driving rhythms churned on and on like you were moving along on a train at different speeds in each song. All the while, Young's guitar delivers a wall of sound that is in one song bouncing of drywall in your mom's garage and in another being delivered from the bottom of a river. It is best listened to over and over and very loud.
Crazy Horse - Billy Talbot on bass/vocals and Ralph Molina drums/vocals - and Young recorded this album live, one song per day, at Vicar Street, in Dublin Ireland last year. With mics in each corner of the room picking up the whole band, everything was recorded at once - vocals, guitar, bass and drums. Played very loud, with one guitar track and only Fender reverbs for effects, there was so much bass in the room that "trying to fix a mistake was next to impossible," Young told Guitar Player magazine last October.
Doesn't sound too conceptual to me.
But what about this rock opera, this town of characters that will be appearing on stage in Sunday's show? Where did they come from? The CD comes with an illustrated booklet about Greendale, along with Young's own notes about each song, its characters and the recording process. He explains in "grandpa's interview" that it was a big surprise to him that these characters kept coming out in each successive song he wrote. "Every day I'd come in with a new song. Usually wrote it on the way over (to the studio). I'd stop my car and write a little bit." It's like John Lee Hooker used to sing, the stories were "... just in 'im. They got to come out!"
There are some bluesy dirges on this album, like "bringin' down dinner", and those who want to light their butane in the air to the old NY classics might be disappointed that instead they're being asked to think about themes of love, freedom and youth activism. It's classic Neil, but in a fresh, simple way. As Young sings on the opening lyrics of Greendale, "I won't retire, but I might retread."
Tickets are $42 and $52. Showtime is 8pm.
While this Sunday's concert will feature what some in the music press have coined, Young's "revamped rock opera", complete with characters on stage, props and multi-media messages, the music and lyrics on Greendale is golden Neil Young.
Greendale is a ten-song rock album of narratives that share many common characters, all who live within a virtual coastline town called Greendale. There are familiar Young themes of angels, artists, war, media, crime, religion, ecology, and politics. Characters like Sun Green, Cousin Jed, Carmichael the Cop, and Earl & Edith Green are woven throughout the album. There's the Double E Ranch and the town jail where the Devil lives.
Does this make it a "concept album"? If it does, so what? To be honest, for the first couple of weeks that I listened to this album over and over, I didn't even pay attention to any of the drama unfolding in the tales. The easy beats and driving rhythms churned on and on like you were moving along on a train at different speeds in each song. All the while, Young's guitar delivers a wall of sound that is in one song bouncing of drywall in your mom's garage and in another being delivered from the bottom of a river. It is best listened to over and over and very loud.
Crazy Horse - Billy Talbot on bass/vocals and Ralph Molina drums/vocals - and Young recorded this album live, one song per day, at Vicar Street, in Dublin Ireland last year. With mics in each corner of the room picking up the whole band, everything was recorded at once - vocals, guitar, bass and drums. Played very loud, with one guitar track and only Fender reverbs for effects, there was so much bass in the room that "trying to fix a mistake was next to impossible," Young told Guitar Player magazine last October.
Doesn't sound too conceptual to me.
But what about this rock opera, this town of characters that will be appearing on stage in Sunday's show? Where did they come from? The CD comes with an illustrated booklet about Greendale, along with Young's own notes about each song, its characters and the recording process. He explains in "grandpa's interview" that it was a big surprise to him that these characters kept coming out in each successive song he wrote. "Every day I'd come in with a new song. Usually wrote it on the way over (to the studio). I'd stop my car and write a little bit." It's like John Lee Hooker used to sing, the stories were "... just in 'im. They got to come out!"
There are some bluesy dirges on this album, like "bringin' down dinner", and those who want to light their butane in the air to the old NY classics might be disappointed that instead they're being asked to think about themes of love, freedom and youth activism. It's classic Neil, but in a fresh, simple way. As Young sings on the opening lyrics of Greendale, "I won't retire, but I might retread."
Tickets are $42 and $52. Showtime is 8pm.
