While Neil Young seems to have spent every day of the last five years touring the US with a variety of backing bands - with the assortment of 'friends' responsible for his last live album and DVD, with Crazy Horse and as one quarter of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, not to mention a huge solo acoustic tour, UK fans haven't seen much of him lately. But, just as we were beginning to get jealous, he suddenly remembered that Europe existed, and was probably worth a pacifying visit. Just as George W had done the week before.
We soon learn, however, that Neil's none too fond of his new President - despite famously supporting Reagan in the '80s - as he dedicates the song 'Piece of Crap' to him. An appreciated gesture, of course, but the song is precisely as the title suggests, and we could perhaps have done without it.
You see, tonight's set with Crazy Horse can be divided into three types of songs. Those that come along, do what they're supposed to and then scarper. These, like 'Hey Hey, My My' and 'Cinnamon Girl', tend to be pretty marvellous. Then there are those songs that come along, and just stay there. When Neil decides to wrap himself around a guitar solo, it can take a great deal of time and effort for him to extricate himself, as we see when a few songs nudge from the 10 to the 15 minute mark. This, mind, is where the frazzled guitar solos take on a life of their own, and seem to convey so eloquently the distress at the core of their songs; 'Love and Only Love' and 'Cortez the Killer' would be infinitely the weaker without them.
Then, sadly, there are the dodgy thrashes, such as the aforementioned 'Piece Of Crap'. 'F**kin' Up' and 'Sedan Delivery' are cut from similar cloth, and five minutes of them seems infinitely more tedious than 10 minutes of , say, 'Powderfinger'. Perhaps someone should mention this to him...
That said, aside from those few, it's hard to fault the song selection, blending acoustic with electric, classic 'hits' with brand new and not yet released tracks and even chucking in the odd rarely played album track like 'Don't Let It Get You Down' and 'I've Been Waiting For You' from his solo debut.
All told, when the final screeches of 'Like A Hurricane' melt away, it's been pretty damn marvellous. You don't see something like that every day.
Unless you live in America, of course...
