Boards

What you never get from tv is a feeling for the atmosphere and vibe at the actual event and it was fucking amazing. A few of my friends came along who are no fans of neil young but were blown away by his on stage persona and set. Didn't meet anyone who wasn't blown away by him.

Why be so negative? What's the point? I was gonna lay into you, but there's no need for rudeness. Just... why?! Really...

festival set =/= normal gig set. The night at the apollo I went to was honestly one of the best gigs I've ever seen. He didn't do rocking in the free world finishing a million times. He DID, however, do Ambulance Blues as the second song.

= absolute win. I think I melted when he did that.

:DDDDDDD

DAM! i wish I was there, and another DAM for not affording a ticket to his Hyde park gig the following day!!

Blur on the third night were the only engaging headliner this year. Neil Young and Bruce belong to a different age, when instrumental prowess and dragging songs out to well beyond their length is considered the height of entertainment.

When he kept things concise, like on The Needle and the Damage Done, he was fantastic. When he was not, such as when Down By The River was lumbering on into eternity, he was coma inducing.

that is the single most stupid thing i've seen on this board.

oh dear

not a good guitarst what the feck!? im sorry but i knew ZERO neil young songs before watching his set, and it was feckin awesome!! give me instrumental prowess and extended jams anyday of the week over wanky posers

the best was the end, when he mangled his bigsby vibrato so much all the strings broke n he was swinging it round and mashing the broken strings into the pickups before hitting the guitar with a mic stand in time with the drums and then ending on the xylophone, glorious stuff!

Most of his guitar work is pretty simple, but I don't get how that's a problem. He showed that he can still play during the extended solos of Rockin' in the Free World (which admittedly got quite tiring quite quickly) and Day in the Life.

it's very difficult to say 'I haven't even heard Rocking in the Free World before' and then go on to decide who is, and who isn't, a legend.

I'm not sure you're the sort of person Neil Young was booked for, to be honest. Seemed to go down pretty well from where I was standing...

You're not supposed to like him, he's good.

What a massive loser.

I think he's been around so long people assume he must be good. It's the same logic that keeps Tom Jones in comebacks.

backseat idiots writing threads like this: "Oh yuh, I only know Harvest and After The Goldrush, I had nothing better to do with my Friday night than attempt to vicariously enjoy a festival I couldn't be bothered to attend myself, I can't believe he didn't play just songs I know, doesn't he know I pay the license feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee???"

People who say they like Neil Young and only like the acoustic stuff do not like Neil Young. It was great, I thought it could have got away with being a bit less crowd-pleasy tbh, drop a couple of the Harvest and Everybody Know... ones and delve into Zuma, On The Beach, Sleeps With Angels, Mirrorball et al. Even the one off Fork In The Road sounded good.

Rocking In The Free World did take the piss a bit, but I think it was sort of intentionally overblown, plus if you couldn't work out that (excess of choruses taken into account) that it's a good song, then, um, yeah, fail...

fucking shocking. Really. That's all I can be arsed to say.

and you like Kasabian.

This is probably the most stupid post I have seen on an internet forum. And I like a read of the Daily Mail blogs for a lunchtime chortle too!

...Neil may not be the most technically proficient player but he's def one of the best guitarists around; simply for his unique sound and the power and feel that goes into each performance...having seen him a few times there is absolutely no way you can fully understand it watching a TV broadcast. You just can't!

To me the criticism seems to be levelled at the choice of set and the extended intro's/outro's/solo's. Obvoiusly the guy doesn't really know much about Neil Young 'cause if he did he might understand that if it's 'Neil Young Electric' you see then that comes complete with all the reworked songs, etc (he has been doing it that way for the best part of 40 years!!!)...its the way he is and if you're not into it maybe just change the channel.

Also perhaps its worth remembering that as a headliner for one of the biggest festivals in the world, a set of quieter acoustic number may have been somewhat 'lost' in both terms of sound and the fact that a large proportion of the audience probably only know one or two songs (seriously, did you see some of them!?!)

For those who can accept a great artist for who he is and enjoyed these reinterpretations of the songs then I highly recommend WELD, its a fantastic live album and the performances are very powerful.

It's never gonna be as good on the telly. Neil Young fuckin rocked. The only band who were better all weekend were Blur. Only Jarvis and Nick Cave came close to being as good as Neil Young. He played Hey hey my my for fucks sake!

I though Blur were terrible. The rest of the band were fine and it was nice to see Coxon back and enjoying himself but Albarn was awful...I mean really out of tune, who shouts the lyrics to The Universal, really?

It was immense. I mean, really IMMENSE.

Pretty much everyone who saw it who I've spoken to agreed, and all the reviews I've read agreed.

Watching it on telly does not give you a very good indication of the quality. You know this, you've been to Glastonbury before. Ever watched a set live then rewatched it when you got home, ain't the same is it?

CSN were class too.

neil young is a genius imo, i love him more every time i see him play. he's not perfect but he still has FIRE in his belly. i loved the glastonbury set even though i was at the back of the crowd.

for me, neil young is the best guitarist of all time, without a doubt, not techniquely but his playing has so much emotion and soul.

He was spelling binding.

The Rocking in the Free World endings were great, everyone was going nuts, and he had a smile as wide as a house. Round the site that night EVERYONE was singing it.

When he came out and opened with Hey Hey My My it was so loud the ground was shaking

that Rockin in the Free World is ultimately bullshit, and that the performance of it had about 8 too many false endings, and that Neil is about 10 times worse than he was in the 70s, and 10 times less charismatic than The Boss, and that his guitar playing is sometimes a bit shitty and boring and wanky, and he really does resemble Kuato from Total Recall.. if you can't see that, then there's really no hope for you