Greendale tour, Europe and US Leg

Fresh Wheat - Updated 6/28/03

 

More Greendale photos by Doug Stacey

The Sublime Genius of Neil, Columbia, MD - 6/25/03

I guess the first thing one does after leaving a Neil Young concert is start doing the comparisons. Was it better than the last show or tour? How did this setlist compare with that one? Was Neil into it or going through the motions?

I went in with mixed expectations having heard some of the Europe solo acoustic shows and reading early reviews of the electric set, with the "cheesy props and flimsy sets" staging, and fans' disappointment with the new material.  But Expecting2Fly had set me straight that this was the "best Neil in decades."

No doubt about it, the Greendale tour ranks up there in a career with a lot of high watermarks.  Does it compare with the '78 Rust Never Sleeps tour?  While the encore clips from the film might draw the comparison, I don't think that Greendale will achieve the RNS level of legendary status.  But still, the genius of Greendale is sublime.  It is a sprawling epic of a tale whose audaciousness is only exceeded by its deceptively simple lyrics and staging.

More of Columbia review here.

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Fresh Wheat - Updated 6/23/03


Greendale in Milwaukee - 6/19/03, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, photo by Doug Stacey
More Greendale in Milwaukee photos photos by Doug Stacey and Greendale Tour Photos page.


• Cross reference table of Europe 2003 Greendale song intros from Shakey's Garage from Matt Butterweck's Numbers on the Site - Neil Young Tour Statistics.

  Fresh Wheat - Updated 6/19/03

• A Human Highway post of Chicago, 6/17/03 from Koz:

  Just returned home from Neil & Crazy Horse. Greendale, this could go down as his best tour ever. I've been to the solo shows in the 70's,80's, & 90's. I've seen the major tours like Rust Never Sleeps and the Garage Band tour,but to me this show was fantastic. The electric Greendale songs blow the acoustic versions away. The stage setup is something I've never seen before at a rock concert, with the video screen and actors, it made it easy for someone not knowing what Greendale was about to understand the story line,( even though a person behind me hated the whole show and couldn't understand what Neil was doing). Most of the audience seemed to like the new material and Neil thanked the crowd numerous times for their support.
• A blog review of Pittsburgh, 6/16/03 from PhugIt:

  For the most part, fans at Starlake Amphitheater accepted the challenge by joining Neil Young on his musical trip through the fictional town of Greendale and embracing his performance of almost exclusively new, yet-unheard, and concept-based material. And the fact a 57-year-old musician was willing to challenge an audience in such a way said much about the performer. The easiest thing for Young, who was accompanied by his longtime Crazy Horse associates, would be to simply play a sing-along concert, cash his check, and move to the next town at this stage of his career.

  More Greendale Reviews of concerts and CD album.

• A new Yahoo Group has been launched to discuss Greendale themes. It's interesting that the discussion isn't taking place on RUST or Human Highway. Group founder Jah puts it this way:

  This group is designed to discuss some of the progressive political issues pointed out in Neil Young's newest album Greendale. This group is not meant to take away from Rust. It is designed to allow more political and activist discussion then would otherwise be appropriate on Rust.
  Kinda reminds me of how Human Highway got started to begin with back years ago.Good luck Greendale group!
  
  

  Fresh Wheat - Updated 6/17/03

• Cassandra Wilson covers Harvest Moon
  A torch song cover version with trip hop rhythms and electronica.Shall we say, different?
  
  

  Fresh Wheat - Updated 6/16/03

• The Latest From Neil Young, By JON PARELES, New York Times - June 15, 2003
  Neil on Greendale: "I just tried to focus right in on the core and get back to the roots of what we do."
  
  
  Neil Young and Crazy Horse at Bonnaroo Festival, TN - June 15, 2003
  
  Bonnaroo Journal from Knoxville News: "Neil Young and Crazy Horse hit the stage at 9:42 p.m. and opened with a 18 minute version of "Love to Burn." Crazy Horse - guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro, drummer Ralph Molina and Bassist Billy Talbot created a beautiful explosion of sound."See more pix at Bonnaroo.com under '03 Daily Gallery.

  The New York Times said:

  "Despite the revolving jam sessions, this was a crowd with a long attention span, and the festival's best stretches were when bands just held their own for long chunks of time. Neil Young, on Friday, performed with his three-decade-old band, Crazy Horse, under a custardy full moon. For three hours he played expanded versions, some of them 29 minutes long, of his best songs"Love to Burn," "Cortez the Killer," "Cinnamon Girl" and others. He was the only soloist, breaking to solo at length several times per song. Playing in his ragged, stuttering phrases, he made strings of notes crumble into noise, then recohere toward graceful endings. (The festival's excellent concert sound made his guitar tone feel a mile thick.) It was extraordinary, the ideal of a gnarled yet sophisticated technique."

  
  
  

  Fresh Wheat - Updated 6/13/03

• St. Pete Times Forum - St. Petersberg Times (FL) Tampa, FL - 6/9/03 Concert Review
  

• Coral Sky West Palm Beach, Florida, June 8, 2003, Palm Beach Post Concert Review
  Neil and the Horse are on tour again! Reviews from the early shows reveal that Neil is being is usual unpredictable self. Performing a set of new material from the upcoming Greendale album, the concerts are pleasing the diehards and bewildering those expecting the hits.With sets, actors and props, the shows recall the staging and theatrics of the Rust Never Sleeps '78 and Rusted Out Garage '87 tours. Expecting to Fly calls this concert the best Neil in decades! And he would know.
  
  

  More on Neil Young's Greendale with reviews and photos.

  Fresh Wheat - Updated 6/06/03

• Pearl Jam has been encoring with Fuckin Up and Rockin in the Free World during their 2003 tour. From PJ's 5 Horizons
  
  
• Neil Young Goes Green - Eco-minded concept album due in the fall, Rolling Stone Mag 6/6/2003
• Eddie Vedder Interview, Rolling Stone Mag 5/7/2003
  Q: Pearl Jam have recorded and toured with Neil Young. What have you learned from him?
  A: One of the things I picked up from Neil was his writing. He was so aware of what you had to do to write the song when the spark came in. If something hits you, for just a split second, you stop everything, and you complete it. You don't just write it on a napkin and, when you have time, flesh it out. You capture that bit of mercury and solidify it right there. That explains how he can be so prolific.
  
  That's another thing we've learned from Neil -- always push things. We went and saw Neil on one of his last tours. He had [bassist] Duck Dunn and [drummer] Jim Keltner. Jeff and I talked to them, and Jeff said, "It was really in the pocket for some of those songs, in the straight groove." And they said, "No, no, no, don't say that. Neil doesn't want it locked in. He's trying to push it around."
  
  Neil's always pushing the music, pulling it, shoving it. We haven't gotten there yet. But I imagine that's where we're going to end up.
  
  
• US is ripe for Revolution (per Neil) , The Guardian, 6/5/03, from Bad News Beat site
  
  
• Archives project postponed....again, May 26,2003, from Bad News Beat site
• Greendale in Europe - Chicago Tribune Interview by Greg Kot - An icon... May 25, 2003, from Bad News Beat site
  "An icon who spans generations talks in his first interview about the multilayered 'Greendale' project, as well as record companies and his lifelong passion for keeping music fresh."

• Tangled up in Greendale - Hamburg, Germany - 4/29/03 by Campbell Stevenson, Sunday May 4, 2003, The (London) Observer In a world of his own making, Neil Young's stunning solo show confirms not only his songwriting prowess but his abiding strangeness
  

  From Expressen
  

• Europe Tour Opener - Stockholm, Sweden 04-22-03 on Rust.

  Fresh Wheat - Updated 3/15/03

• Neil inducted Mo Ostin into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction on March 10, 2003. From PUNK: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction 2003:
  "Of anything that was said throughout the entire evening, the most important words spoken by anyone were the ones that didn't make it onto VH1. Some of those words came from Neil Young. The others were from keyboardist Steve Nieve of Elvis Costello and the Imposters.

  Young, who was on hand to give a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Nonperformer Category to Mo Ostin, said, "'We're having a good time tonight but we're going to kill a lot of people next week. So let's not forget about that. I don't want to ruin this but it's too real not to mention it. And music used to be about this. And it still is about this, it's a human thing. And these are human beings over there and we're making a big mistake. I feel like I'm riding in a giant gas guzzling SUV and the driver's drunk as a fucking skunk. He's drunk on power.'"

  In Steve Nieve's acceptance speech, he said, 'In a sense, we all belong to the ultimate rock 'n' roll band: the human race. And very rare are the bands that have not experienced a moment of conflict. But the solution to conflict can't be a war. War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. I'd love it if the decidants of our countries, particularly as they seem to be the countries of the rock 'n' roll, would listen to those words and, even better, to pay attention to the words of Elvis Costello: 'Diving for dear life when we could be diving for pearls.''"

  

• Jimmy McDonough, author of Shakey bio, NPR Interview, 6/22/02
  
• Lawsuit against Neil background - A lawsuit was filed by Neil's biographer Jimmy McDonough over the release of the final publication "Shakey".From Human Highway,
• You're Strange, but Don't Change - Shakey Review, NY Times, By Rick Moody, 5/26/02.
• Review - Shakey: Neil Young's Biography" by Jimmy McDonough - The story of the "Godfather of Grunge" is a tale of sickness, health, overweening ego, spectacular talent and reckless abandon. By Douglas Cruickshank, Salon Mag, 6/5/02
• "Too Far Gone: Fucking Up with Neil Young" - Village Voice article by Jimmy McDonough, author of Shakey bio, Winter 1989.This is where Jimmy and Neil first meet up.
  
• Neil Young: the quiet achiever, May 11 2002, The Guardian (Australia) Hey, there's a Thrasher ref!
  
• INTERVIEW WITH NEIL YOUNG on Silver & Gold
  March 17, 2000 at Austin’s Driskill Hotel, KSGR Radio By Jody Denberg
  
• Neil Young: Still Crazy After All These Years, 12/97, NY Rock