Neil Young & Crazy Horse at O2 Arena

 
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Los Lobos
O2 Arena, 17 June 2013

It's fascinating still to read all the fan reviews of a Neil Young show. All these years on and he still divides opinion although this London show was generally received more favourably than the concert in Dublin the night before. While I do understand that some people are turned off by long guitar solos and lots of noisy feedback, most of the time when I read the complaints I do wonder if they were at the same show I was. This is because of all the times I've seen Neil Young I've never come away less than amazed, and this concert was no exception.

For starters this was actually the first time I've ever seen Young with his old cohorts Crazy Horse, without doubt his most famous and beloved backing band, so understandably I was excited, to put it lightly. Crazy Horse are famous for being loud, raw, loose and full of energy and they lived up to all of these expectations and more. Leaving no doubt of just what this concert was all about (namely feedback drenched rock n' roll), the boys opened with a ten-minute long Love And Only Love and it was quite frankly, well, beautiful, with Neil at one point shouting out "Tonight!" repeatedly as if to let us know it was all about the here and now. Powderfinger followed, sounding every bit as powerful as it did back in 1979, with Neil lurching back and forward towards guitarist Poncho as he soloed away, lost in the music yet sharing this moment with his old pal and seemingly challenging him on. New song Psychedelic Pill fit in with the older songs perfectly, sounding loud and punchy, its almost one-note solo reminiscent of old classic Cinnamon Girl.

Next though came the part where the casual fans were put to the test with the sprawling magnificence of new track Walk Like A Giant. On record this song is over 16 minutes anyway and the Horse wasn't about to cut it down in concert, although a huge chunk of its length came at the end with howls of discordant feedback with Young coaxing all kinds of strange wailing sounds from his guitar and his amp as roadies let loose bags of crumpled paper and plastic bags in front of a huge fan so that they drifted across the stage as they played. It was strangely fascinating and brilliant and while it may have tried the patience of those who came expecting to hear Heart Of Gold (come on people, this is a Crazy Horse show after all!), it was typically confrontational and full of the risk-taking that we've come to know and love Neil for. This is not a man to ever fall back into the comfort of a golden oldies greatest hits show, Young wants to either blow you away or completely piss you off and that's exactly what he did and why he is still so incredibly exciting at 67 years of age. How many of his contemporaries can claim that?

Still after all this noise (about 15 minutes worth no less) Young knew then to pull it back a bit for the next few numbers giving us new song Hole In The Sky (not surprisingly a environmentally-themed song although certainly one of Neil's minor moments) and then a lovely acoustic segment starting with a surprise outing for Silver & Gold song Red Sun (which apparently he's only ever played a handful of times before), the gorgeous Comes A Time and a rousing rendition of Dylan's Blowing In The Wind which had the crowd singing along. There was another new song, a lovely gentle number with Neil on piano called Singer Without A Song which again had an odd but appealing presentation when a tattooed girl in a white dress holding a guitar case wandered on stage and wistfully stared off into the distance, so we could picture the musician lady Neil was singing about I guess. Still it was quirky and helped make it all the more memorable.

All this niceness was just to give the doubters a brief reprieve before the loud, rocking Crazy Horse returned with another epic anthem, Ramada Inn, featuring long solos from Young and heartfelt vocals, all set to a solid groove from the Horse bathed in psychedelic swirling lights. Apparently quite a few people left during this mammoth number, not willing to endure any more drawn-out jams I guess, but to my ears it sounded wonderful and moving. Plus they missed out on some of the best moments that followed as the band brought out some real classics from Young's back catalogue starting with a terrifically crunchy and grungy Cinnamon Girl and a hugely fun Fuckin' Up, during which the band was obviously having a ball, drawing out this Ragged Glory favourite with lots of audience interaction as Poncho told us that they were all fuck ups and the crowd gamely chanting along "You're a fuck up!" They then kept it loud for a nicely loose Mr. Soul while the riff for Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black) sounded like cool little explosions in the arena and ended with Neil singing "don't say it's over" again and again to his wailing, distorted guitar, the drums crashing behind him.

As Neil's winged keyboard was lowered from the heavens (poor Poncho though attempting to play it as it swung about was an amusing sight to see) we knew the encore was going to be Like A Hurricane, which is always fantastic but I must admit I was a little disappointed because I was hoping for Cortez The Killer (which he had just played the night before in Dublin). Near the end someone came on stage and showed Neil a piece of paper which was obviously telling him that he was near the curfew. Neil did indeed finish up the song probably sooner than he had planned, as it was shorter than previous performances I've seen of this song, but then as wonderfully fickle as he often is he obviously decided to play on and started up with the hugely enjoyable Roll Another Number (shouting "Fuck the train!" beforehand amusingly enough). 

Then Neil, obviously in a good mood, announced "One more for you cause yer good looking" before warning his manager to get out his cheque book (he's been fined before for going over curfew, most memorably for me when he played about an hour over back in 2008 on the first night of the Hammersmith Apollo shows) and launched into Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, a truly glorious end to a completely thrilling night full of wonderful and unexpected things. "Frankly, a lot of times tonight we kinda sucked but with what we do that happens," Neil told us at the end, being rather unfair to himself and the Horse, before adding "but we want you to know we think you deserve the best". And tonight really was the best, from music which ranged from sweet and melodic to in-you-face rock n' roll to the bizarre and striking stage set-up, which began with national anthem and included roadies dressed as scientists dramatically unveiling the larger than large fake amps that dominated the stage (as in the Rust Never Sleeps and Weld days) before lowering the huge fake microphone to The Beatles' Day In The Life at the start of the show, there was so much to love about this gig. Neil is as uncompromisingly as ever and still full of attitude and that's exactly why after all these years he is still riveting to watch and unforgettable to hear.

Also worth a mention was the fine support act, Los Lobos who were actually far more rocking than I expected giving up some Spanish-flavoured bluesy rock. Because I don't know their material that well I can't tell you the names of the songs but the highlights for me included a quite punky number sung by the guitarist and another, dedicated to The Pogues, which heavily featured an accordion and helped liven the mood in the often lifeless O2 Arena. Their biggest hit here was their cover of La Bamba, which went to number one back in 1987, and gamely they finished off their set with it tonight and it sounded fantastic. Definitely a worthy opener for a true legend like Young.