Neil Young

In a performance that lasted over three hours, never sagged, and encompassed songs from 1963 to 2007, I may as well give away the ending now and reveal that this really was a fantastic show.

It did not start off so positively, though. Having paid a crippling amount of money for the privilege of attending Neil Young's final tour date in New York (no DiS did not fund my trip. Yeah, I know!), it was slightly dispiriting to discover on the eve of my departure that Young will be playing four dates in London next March (now upped to six!) But then I realised: I'm going to New York City to see Neil Young. And it cannot get a lot better than that.

Sure, he hasn't done anything decent for 35 years (just forget this year's excellent Chrome Dreams II, 2006's battering_ Living With War, 2005's _Prairie Wind _and 2003's gigantically underrated _Greendale), and he's at least 80 years old. (What's that? He's not even retirement age?) So while the 62 year old may not be the first artist one associates with DiS, it is tricky to find someone that beats him not only in longevity, but sheer consistent quality of output. Sparks? Springsteen? Dylan? I doubt it.

The all-seated venue, United Palace Theatre, was bizarre. Ornate to a nauseating degree, its architecture is best described as a hysterically delusional clash of countless Classical styles. It's also an active church, with enormous quotes from the notorious Reverend Ike hanging from the golden walls. It's not exactly the Barfly.

Mrs Neil Young was not the most inspiring support act, her husband's genius apparently not rubbing off. Anyway, nobody was there for her and it was much more fun hanging out in the lobby with the mostly middle-aged, mostly drunk and rowdy locals. A sweaty lady named Kathy (who blows her fan directly in my face by way of introduction) was seeing Neil Young for the seventh time on this tour, and gave me a hearty rendition of 'No Hidden Path'. A fat man called Frank shouted how the venue is "like the moon". Another woman said that Pegi Young was so boring she_ "pissed her pants" _(the woman, not Pegi Young).

The set was split into two halves: solo and acoustic, then plugged in with band. While Young's setlist has not changed much from date to date (WARNING! SPOILER!: LINK!), he's never been one to audience pander, and nobody here was complaining. Although having said that, a pre-show announcement that_ "Neil has already prepared tonight's setlist", et cetera, could not prevent the whole spectrum of predictable song requests. ("'Old Man'!" shouted one man hopefully; "Careful,"_ warned Young in response, adding how "I need to come to my own shows just to remember what I've done".)

Young emerged crouching and hidden from behind a big painting of the letter N. Honestly. Wearing a paint-splattered tattered chino-suit, he launched into 'From Hank To Hendrix', setting the evening's tone by bringing the comparatively average song to life, freeing it from the pop-rock shackles of the recorded version. The bitterly wistful and sparse 'Ambulance Blues' _(from the classic _On The Beach, review) that followed was the acoustic set's highlight, Young doubling on harmonica and a slowly picked guitar while his unusually low vocals traced the nostalgic tale of his musical and political history. It is a brilliant song and a sublime ten minutes.

Several times between tracks Young stood and, seemingly lost in thought, appeared uncertain of what song to play next. He wondered the large stage, running his hands lovingly over some ancient guitars, a banjo and piano or two, before finally coming to a decision. Of course the set was pre-prepared, but it was typical of Young and his performance, reflective of a man with endless 'lost' albums and creating the sense that he was pondering over his entire, vast back-catalogue, and could have plucked anything out of it.

Post-interval, and it's Rock and Roll time._ 'Mr Soul'_ (from 1967, Young's Buffalo Springfield days) sparked a refreshingly furious pace. Now a four-piece band (plus two occasional backing singers), Young was finally able to stretch his towering, lanky frame. With his straggly hair and recently acquired bald patch, Young moved around the stage in a way that hardly befitted his 62 years. He's not quite Ian Curtis, but he certainly gets into it. Meanwhile, a painter created spontaneous canvasses at the back of the stage during each song, before revealing a painting with the next song's title incorporated into it.

'Dirty Old Man', from Chrome Dreams II, of which the entire acoustic set saw not one song, was brilliantly grubby and a real thrashing rock number. 'No Hidden Path' went on for nearly 30 minutes (during which Young's laidback pedal-steel guitarist Ben Keith looked increasingly out of breath, willing Young to either bring the song to a close or at least slow down), while classics like_ 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' and 'Cinnamon Girl' finally allowed the now standing audience to indulge in a dance and sing along. The encore saw an epic rendition of the anthemic 'Cortez The Killer', before a sultan emerged with a big gong as the band played _'The Sultan', a 1963 instrumental surf-rock track from Young's high school band The Squires (and the so-called rarest 45 in the world).

All in all, pretty good. Pretty, pretty good. Neil Young may be playing my hometown in just three months, but I'd travel around the world again to see him sooner if it's half as great as this.

Photo: hightea/steve