Concert Reviews of Neil Young Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 22:52:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Kurt William Vogel
To: rust@flying.fish.com
Cc: Kurt William Vogel
Subject: 3/21/96 Setlist and Mini-Review
Here's the setlist for 3/21/96-- I'm not sure if I've seen it posted yet. This is definitely accurate ;)
Set I:
Country Home
Stupid Girl
Bite the Bullet (after this Neil says "nice to see you out here tonight.")
Drive Back
Wonderin'
Like a Hurricane
Set II:
The Losing End
Dangerbird
Roll Another Number
Barstool Blues
When Your Lonely Heart Breaks
Homegrown
Prisoners of Rock n Roll
Set III:
Don't Cry no Tears
Down by the River
Baby What do You Want Me to Do? (?not sure on title? Etta James song?)
Powderfinger
The whole thing was a surreal experience. I've been to great shows, had great seats, but _nothing_ can compare to what happened last night. It was unreal to be three feet from Frank and Billy's mic stand (Neil's was about 8 feet away). Neil and the band were totally into it. It's been discussed on this list before- "how can Neil play Powderfinger, Down by the River and Like a Hurricane every show-- c'mon, it gets boring sometime." No way-- when you're practically on the stage with the band it becomes a transcendental experience (I haven't seen anyone mention yet that the "stage" was little more than a platform about 6 inches high. There were no baricades or anything, just a piece of tape about a foot in front of it that they made people stay behind). Someone mentioned once before the image of "three guys huddled together in a circle the size of a hot-tub", totally locked into one another and just taking things to another level. Well, that's definitely what was going on last night.
Sure, it would have been cool to have heard some new material, but these sets were great. Most of these songs I've never seen the band do live. I guess the highlight for me had to be "Prisoners of Rock n Roll"-- I just had to laugh when they were singing "We don't wanna be good-- no no no!" and I'm thinking "this will probably be the most amazing concert experience of my life."
In the end, securing a ticket to this show (actually a wrist-band) consumed my entire week both mentally and physically and was obviously worth everything. I guess someone taped it and is treeing it, so that should be a good tape. Despite what ATN reported, I believe only 50 tickets were sold for each night (though the club fits 150, that figure may be for when the stage isn't taking up a quarter of the room). Certainly more than 50 people were there, and it helped to be a local when securing tickets.
See you there next week?
Kurt
Thrasher's Wheat - A Neil Young Archives