Crosby & Nash at the Royal Albert Hall

Crosby & Nash

Royal Albert Hall, 8 October 2011

For the past couple of years I've been lucky enough to catch Crosby, Stills & Nash at the Royal Albert Hall and each time has been a pretty amazing experience.
With Stills off reuniting with Buffalo Springfield (before Neil Young decided instead to write a book: typical Shakey), David Crosby and Graham Nash were left at a loose end so decided to go out on tour by themselves. Not that they haven't done that before, they have made four albums as just Crosby & Nash over the years and are popular and well loved enough to be able to fill out the exact same venue without their guitar-playing friend. Although, I must admit, Stephen Stills' blistering solos have been some of my favourite moments of the two CSN concerts I've seen, I was curious to see what a concert without him would be like and hopeful it meant there would be room for more unexpected material.

When they promptly arrived on stage at 8pm I couldn't have asked for more in that regard, as a feedback-filled intro grew into The Byrds' psychedelic classic Eight Miles High. And wow, what a treat. It sounded great to hear Crosby, one of its original writers sing that song, and Nash sounded pretty fantastic singing it alongside him. After that they quickly launched into one of Nash's greatest solo songs, I Used To Be A King, which also sounded tremendous. Those two incredible and unexpected openers were practically worth the price of admission alone but aside from a few other brilliant and shining moments the rest of the show didn't quite live up to that surprising beginning.

The one big exception to that was the first song after the interval where Graham explained that Crosby had suggested that because they were playing a Byrds song on this tour that they should also play a tune by Nash's old band The Hollies too, and they had been playing their old hit Bus Stop. "But tonight is special," Nash announced with a grin on his face, "because we are going to play it with my dear friend Allan Clarke!” And out walks Allan looking lean, silver-haired and cool. People all around me stood up in excitement. Allan was obviously excited to perform with his old friend again too bounding over to Graham and singing the song leaning into each other clearly having a ball. All the while Crosby just stood back with a big grin on his face, like he was enjoying it as much as we were, and just joining them singing the chorus (after he told Nash "I got chills, man!"). At the end when Allan had gone off the stage to a big roar from the audience, Graham joked, “You know I’ve known Allan since I was six years old… twenty years now.” It was a beautiful moment and I was glad I was there to witness it.

The rest of the gig was comprised mainly of CSN songs, a few solo offerings and a couple of new numbers. The CSN numbers were, as expected, pretty much all fantastic although some I really did miss Stills' guitar magic on. In particular Wooden Ships, which had been hypnotic and mesmerising when played at the previous CSN concerts I've seen, really dragged during the end instrumental part and I found my mind wandering. But the lack of Stills wasn't all bad, without him it gave room for Crosby and Nash's fantastic chemistry to shine, which at times was just Nash good naturedly teasing his long time musical partner. "He hates when people shout 'Love ya, Dave!' at him," Nash joked. "It reminds him of prison." In response Crosby flicked a guitar pick at his old mate laughing "Don't go there, man!"

But while these were awesome moments some of the mid set songs dragged a little. Without Stills around it gave them room for more solo songs but not always the best ones (such as Solider from Crosby's awful 1993 album A Thousand Roads), and a couple of okayish new songs, Slice Of Time and In Your Name, which Nash actually debuted on the last CSN tour. Thankfully this didn't last too long and when they returned to Nash's best solo stuff, a beautiful, beautiful version of Crosby's Orleans (it would have been nice to hear more from his first solo album actually), his voice sounding as good as ever, and of course the classic CSN material, it was joyous stuff.

I'm definitely glad I got to see Crosby & Nash as a duo: Nash, bare-footed and full of energy is probably the best looking nearly-70-year-old ever and Crosby, his tache still magnificently full, looked thinner and healthier than I've seen him look in a long time. It was cool to witness that chemistry and friendship for sure. But I must admit next time I hope Stephen Stills is back in the fray because there really is nothing like the three of them together and while the concert made me appreciate both Crosby and Nash, Stills absence also made me appreciate him more too.