Neil Young at Hyde Park
Hard Rock Calling 2009:
Neil Young
Fleet Foxes
Seasick Steve
Ben Harper & Relentless 7
The Pretenders
Hyde Park, 27 June 2009
So the promise of seeing Neil Young live for the ninth time brought me out for (sadly) my one and only festival-style experience this summer. But it was a great day that seemed to encompass the best and worst of the British weather, starting out sunny and uncomfortably hot and halfway through dark clouds suddenly gathering over the crowds in Hyde park and drenching us all in rain.
When we arrived The Pretenders were already on stage. I have to admit I'm not a big fan of Chrissie Hynde, I think I was put off her in my riot grrl teens when she seemed to proudly proclaim that girls can't play guitar (as if she were the exception to the rule). But despite my reservations about her personally, the band played a crowd-pleasing greatest hits set and sounded pretty tight and rocking. I wasn't a convert though, but it was cool to get to see a little of their set.
After finding a prime position near the front, Seasick Steve in his now trademark dungarees and cap wandered onto the stage with a big grin on his face. I had heard all the stories of Steve being a hobo, drifter and hopping trains as a youth, only finding fame in recent years after a triumphant appearance on Jools Holland's Later programme leading to him becoming a festival fave, so I was particularly curious to see if his recent fame was justified. Well it more than is, Seasick Steve is a knock-out live, combining real raw almost punky yet authentic sounding blues, with great, funny stories and rousing, singalong songs. He's a fantastic guitarist (sometimes playing slide with guitars with only three or four strings) and he has a kick-ass drummer, and somehow just the pair of them manage to make more beautiful noise and have more spirit than most of the big bands playing. Certainly better than the next act, Ben Harper & Relentless 7.
To be honest I hadn't planned on watching Ben Harper and his polished soulful blues, even though he's a mate of Eddie Vedder, I wanted instead to go catch sweet folky Alessi's Ark, who recorded one of my favourite albums this year, Notes From The Treehouse. However the bandstand stage where she was playing was all the way around the other side of the park, so we opted instead to get something to eat, sit down and watch Ben Harper and his band. He was better than I expected, despite the fact I generally find his sound too smooth (in complete contrast to Seasick Steve's genuine, rootsy feel). He's a pretty mean slide guitar player and they played a pretty cool cover of Led Zep's Good Times Bad Times, but, as with a lot of these blues rock bands that are hugely popular in the States, it was too controlled and polished to move me. But he was fine and I was glad I caught him.
We then wandered back into the crowd to find a good position because this is where we were staying for the rest of the night, and found an excellent spot right in front of the stage (thanks to people wandering off between sets), meaning we had an excellent view of Fleet Foxes, who were the final act before the Neil grand finale. I first saw Fleet Foxes last year at the tiny ULU and it was an incredible, intimate show, full of heavenly harmonies and sweet acoustics. I was so bowled over by their warm, friendly, awesome performance I convinced my friend to come with me to see them a few months later at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, and a lot of the magic and warmth was lost in the much larger venue (my friend kind of looked at me, like, what were you going on about?). I feared the same would be true in a festival atmosphere but I'm truly happy to say they sounded fantastic. All plaid shirts and beards (well they are from Seattle) they were obviously pretty gleeful to be playing the same stage as Neil Young and the harmonies, turned up to full volume, were just golden. Funnily enough where it had been pouring from the heavens moments before, as soon as they started playing their harmony-filled folk rock, the rain dried up and the sky became brighter. I'm not saying Fleet Foxes have the power to control the weather but then, maybe I am. Aside from a fine selection of songs from their self-titled debut and sole EP Sun Giant, singer Robin Pecknold also treated us to a solo rendition of a new acoustic song, which sounded beautifully intricate and sweet, and a longer, full band new number, which sounded rockier than their previous material and made me excited for their next release (which probably won't emerge until next year). Highlight for me though was Mykonos, probably my favourite Fleet Foxes song, which ended the set perfectly. Funnily enough during their set I noticed an older couple with cotton wool in their ears wincing at the loudness. The bass was a little high, I admit, but it was pretty tame apart from that. I wondered how they were going to cope with Neil's feedback drenched solos if they couldn't even endure some friendly folk sounds!
So anyway, onto the main act. Two hours long and filled with hits and fan favourites, Neil was obviously in a great mood: it was the last show of the European tour afterall. Starting out with the loud crunch of Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black), I was singing along the whole set! (Thankfully it was loud enough to drown out my sad but joyful attempts). There was a good slice of Ragged Glory material (one of my first Neil albums), with Mansion On The Hill, F!#in' Up and Mother Earth (during which Neil practically disappeared from sight behind his pump organ at the back of the stage, thank god for big screens!) and a fan-pleasing foursome from Harvest - Are You Ready For The Country?, Needle And The Damage Done, Heart Of Gold and Old Man, but the rest of the material spanned his entire career with surprisingly just one track from his last album Fork In The Road, Get Behind The Wheel and just one from the previous record, a much scaled down Spirit Road (in contrast to the long, guitar solo-filled versions from last year).
Neil was smiling the whole night and even added in Old Man on a whim (his trusty electric guitar Old Black was almost being handed to him when he decided to play it). "Do you want to hear more of that?" he said in his Neil drawl, smiling, unlike last year at the Hop Farm show where he appeared to be in a grumpy mood and kept the crowd-friendly acoustic stuff to a minimum in order to play (what I thought was a fantastic) 25-minute version of No Hidden Path. Casual fans were not amused, ha!
Of the acoustic section my favourite by far was hearing Comes A Time live for the first time. It's one of my favourite Neil albums and hearing the title track live was a real treat for me, although I was sad, given he's played it at just about every European show before this one, that he dropped Pocahontas, as that's on my wishlist to see live one day.
Elsewhere there was a sprawling but magnificent version of Words. I love this song, don't get me wrong, and I was thrilled when he played it last year at Hop Farm, but my heart did drop a little when he began to sing it because then I knew there was to be no Cortez The Killer, my favourite ever Neil track and the song that provided me with one of my greatest ever concert moments when he played it during his headlining appearance at the Reading Festival in 1995, reducing me to tears. I knew that Neil either played Words or Cortez, but never both. It was a disappointing moment for me but the beauty of Words was a pretty good compensation.
After a blistering Down By The River, the set ended with a fist-pumping Rockin' In The Free World, where the whole crowd seemed to be energized and singing along in high spirits. Neil was enjoying it so much that everytime he ended the song and the crowd started clapping, he started it up again. He did this three times in total, by the third time I couldn't stop laughing, it was such a funny Neil thing to do, as every song he dragged out the ending with soloing and feedback, but to re-start the song at the chorus after all that, not once but three times was pretty funny and cool.
For the encore I thought he might do his cover of The Beatles' A Day In The Life (which he ended the show with at Hop Farm last year) but I hoped it might be Like A Hurricane as I saw his roadies check the little winged prop that hangs at the top of the stage and lowers only when he breaks out that song (is it a keyboard of some kind? I don't know), several times before the show started. But it wasn't to be, we got his fuzzed-up Beatles cover yet again. But then came the surprise, as during the second verse a figure emerged from the side of the stage and ran over to the microphone and began to sing with Neil. It was Paul McCartney, old Macca, there to help Neil out and make the cover more special than the previous times it had been played. Macca kept pointing to Neil like he couldn't believe he was on stage with him, and at one point came up behind Neil and bear-hugged him so hard, making him laugh, that he had to stop soloing. I can't imagine many would get away with pulling that move except another legend equal to Mr Young. So despite the absence of a few songs I would have loved to have heard live, the show ended on a pretty cool, high note.
It was a spectacular, awe-inspiring show that I'm sure will make many people's favourite gigs of all time, and deservedly so. But for me it doesn't quite match the first night of his Hammersmith shows last year, where the intimate nature (I was in the second row!) and the fact that Neil went drastically over the curfew ending with a mind-blowing Like A Hurricane, stopping just shy of midnight, because he was enjoying himself so much, and made me sob like a baby when he played the most gorgeous, emotional version of Vampire Blues I've ever heard, well, gigs don't come much better than that. Ever. But this one, admittedly, was pretty damn close.
Neil Young
Fleet Foxes
Seasick Steve
Ben Harper & Relentless 7
The Pretenders
Hyde Park, 27 June 2009
So the promise of seeing Neil Young live for the ninth time brought me out for (sadly) my one and only festival-style experience this summer. But it was a great day that seemed to encompass the best and worst of the British weather, starting out sunny and uncomfortably hot and halfway through dark clouds suddenly gathering over the crowds in Hyde park and drenching us all in rain.
When we arrived The Pretenders were already on stage. I have to admit I'm not a big fan of Chrissie Hynde, I think I was put off her in my riot grrl teens when she seemed to proudly proclaim that girls can't play guitar (as if she were the exception to the rule). But despite my reservations about her personally, the band played a crowd-pleasing greatest hits set and sounded pretty tight and rocking. I wasn't a convert though, but it was cool to get to see a little of their set.
After finding a prime position near the front, Seasick Steve in his now trademark dungarees and cap wandered onto the stage with a big grin on his face. I had heard all the stories of Steve being a hobo, drifter and hopping trains as a youth, only finding fame in recent years after a triumphant appearance on Jools Holland's Later programme leading to him becoming a festival fave, so I was particularly curious to see if his recent fame was justified. Well it more than is, Seasick Steve is a knock-out live, combining real raw almost punky yet authentic sounding blues, with great, funny stories and rousing, singalong songs. He's a fantastic guitarist (sometimes playing slide with guitars with only three or four strings) and he has a kick-ass drummer, and somehow just the pair of them manage to make more beautiful noise and have more spirit than most of the big bands playing. Certainly better than the next act, Ben Harper & Relentless 7.
To be honest I hadn't planned on watching Ben Harper and his polished soulful blues, even though he's a mate of Eddie Vedder, I wanted instead to go catch sweet folky Alessi's Ark, who recorded one of my favourite albums this year, Notes From The Treehouse. However the bandstand stage where she was playing was all the way around the other side of the park, so we opted instead to get something to eat, sit down and watch Ben Harper and his band. He was better than I expected, despite the fact I generally find his sound too smooth (in complete contrast to Seasick Steve's genuine, rootsy feel). He's a pretty mean slide guitar player and they played a pretty cool cover of Led Zep's Good Times Bad Times, but, as with a lot of these blues rock bands that are hugely popular in the States, it was too controlled and polished to move me. But he was fine and I was glad I caught him.
We then wandered back into the crowd to find a good position because this is where we were staying for the rest of the night, and found an excellent spot right in front of the stage (thanks to people wandering off between sets), meaning we had an excellent view of Fleet Foxes, who were the final act before the Neil grand finale. I first saw Fleet Foxes last year at the tiny ULU and it was an incredible, intimate show, full of heavenly harmonies and sweet acoustics. I was so bowled over by their warm, friendly, awesome performance I convinced my friend to come with me to see them a few months later at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, and a lot of the magic and warmth was lost in the much larger venue (my friend kind of looked at me, like, what were you going on about?). I feared the same would be true in a festival atmosphere but I'm truly happy to say they sounded fantastic. All plaid shirts and beards (well they are from Seattle) they were obviously pretty gleeful to be playing the same stage as Neil Young and the harmonies, turned up to full volume, were just golden. Funnily enough where it had been pouring from the heavens moments before, as soon as they started playing their harmony-filled folk rock, the rain dried up and the sky became brighter. I'm not saying Fleet Foxes have the power to control the weather but then, maybe I am. Aside from a fine selection of songs from their self-titled debut and sole EP Sun Giant, singer Robin Pecknold also treated us to a solo rendition of a new acoustic song, which sounded beautifully intricate and sweet, and a longer, full band new number, which sounded rockier than their previous material and made me excited for their next release (which probably won't emerge until next year). Highlight for me though was Mykonos, probably my favourite Fleet Foxes song, which ended the set perfectly. Funnily enough during their set I noticed an older couple with cotton wool in their ears wincing at the loudness. The bass was a little high, I admit, but it was pretty tame apart from that. I wondered how they were going to cope with Neil's feedback drenched solos if they couldn't even endure some friendly folk sounds!
So anyway, onto the main act. Two hours long and filled with hits and fan favourites, Neil was obviously in a great mood: it was the last show of the European tour afterall. Starting out with the loud crunch of Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black), I was singing along the whole set! (Thankfully it was loud enough to drown out my sad but joyful attempts). There was a good slice of Ragged Glory material (one of my first Neil albums), with Mansion On The Hill, F!#in' Up and Mother Earth (during which Neil practically disappeared from sight behind his pump organ at the back of the stage, thank god for big screens!) and a fan-pleasing foursome from Harvest - Are You Ready For The Country?, Needle And The Damage Done, Heart Of Gold and Old Man, but the rest of the material spanned his entire career with surprisingly just one track from his last album Fork In The Road, Get Behind The Wheel and just one from the previous record, a much scaled down Spirit Road (in contrast to the long, guitar solo-filled versions from last year).
Neil was smiling the whole night and even added in Old Man on a whim (his trusty electric guitar Old Black was almost being handed to him when he decided to play it). "Do you want to hear more of that?" he said in his Neil drawl, smiling, unlike last year at the Hop Farm show where he appeared to be in a grumpy mood and kept the crowd-friendly acoustic stuff to a minimum in order to play (what I thought was a fantastic) 25-minute version of No Hidden Path. Casual fans were not amused, ha!
Of the acoustic section my favourite by far was hearing Comes A Time live for the first time. It's one of my favourite Neil albums and hearing the title track live was a real treat for me, although I was sad, given he's played it at just about every European show before this one, that he dropped Pocahontas, as that's on my wishlist to see live one day.
Elsewhere there was a sprawling but magnificent version of Words. I love this song, don't get me wrong, and I was thrilled when he played it last year at Hop Farm, but my heart did drop a little when he began to sing it because then I knew there was to be no Cortez The Killer, my favourite ever Neil track and the song that provided me with one of my greatest ever concert moments when he played it during his headlining appearance at the Reading Festival in 1995, reducing me to tears. I knew that Neil either played Words or Cortez, but never both. It was a disappointing moment for me but the beauty of Words was a pretty good compensation.
After a blistering Down By The River, the set ended with a fist-pumping Rockin' In The Free World, where the whole crowd seemed to be energized and singing along in high spirits. Neil was enjoying it so much that everytime he ended the song and the crowd started clapping, he started it up again. He did this three times in total, by the third time I couldn't stop laughing, it was such a funny Neil thing to do, as every song he dragged out the ending with soloing and feedback, but to re-start the song at the chorus after all that, not once but three times was pretty funny and cool.
For the encore I thought he might do his cover of The Beatles' A Day In The Life (which he ended the show with at Hop Farm last year) but I hoped it might be Like A Hurricane as I saw his roadies check the little winged prop that hangs at the top of the stage and lowers only when he breaks out that song (is it a keyboard of some kind? I don't know), several times before the show started. But it wasn't to be, we got his fuzzed-up Beatles cover yet again. But then came the surprise, as during the second verse a figure emerged from the side of the stage and ran over to the microphone and began to sing with Neil. It was Paul McCartney, old Macca, there to help Neil out and make the cover more special than the previous times it had been played. Macca kept pointing to Neil like he couldn't believe he was on stage with him, and at one point came up behind Neil and bear-hugged him so hard, making him laugh, that he had to stop soloing. I can't imagine many would get away with pulling that move except another legend equal to Mr Young. So despite the absence of a few songs I would have loved to have heard live, the show ended on a pretty cool, high note.
It was a spectacular, awe-inspiring show that I'm sure will make many people's favourite gigs of all time, and deservedly so. But for me it doesn't quite match the first night of his Hammersmith shows last year, where the intimate nature (I was in the second row!) and the fact that Neil went drastically over the curfew ending with a mind-blowing Like A Hurricane, stopping just shy of midnight, because he was enjoying himself so much, and made me sob like a baby when he played the most gorgeous, emotional version of Vampire Blues I've ever heard, well, gigs don't come much better than that. Ever. But this one, admittedly, was pretty damn close.
Comments
Post a Comment