review of recent Neil Young concert in Canada

Review: Neil Young unites generations at GM Place
Kevin Chong, Special to The SunPublished: Thursday, October 23, 2008
VANCOUVER - Earlier this year, when Neil Young appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, he stepped onstage wearing a crisp, dry-cleaned dress shirt and jeans splattered with paint. Even those who know the Toronto-born rocker's work only in passing might be aware that Young is no fashion plate. And those who've followed Young's career know that his work has been marked by what can be described as a cultivated messiness. From his often screeching tenor to his bum note-laden guitar soloing, Young has found beauty in imperfection.
A prolific, creatively restless musician whose output includes over 40 albums, Young has created a body of work that has influenced the direction of various rock subgenres: the bearded alt-country of bands like Fleet Foxes and My Morning Jacket; the work of singer-songwriters like Hayden and Kathleen Edwards; and the grunge of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, which subsequently influenced much of today's radio-rock. Bands like Radiohead and Bon Jovi, whose music bears little resemblance to Young's, have paid tribute to him by covering his songs.
At GM Place, an audience that included many teenagers with their parents gathered to see Young play in Vancouver for the first time since his 2003 Greendale tour.


Mark van Manen/Vancouver Sun

Death Cab for Cutie opened for Young. As attendees looked for their seats, Everest, a Los Angeles group who record on Young's Vapor Records, opened with a brief set. The band, led by singer Russell Pollard, specializes in seventies-style California-rock not unlike the Gram Parsons and headliner himself. Death Cab for Cutie, originally Bellingham, perform melodic indie rock that's lyrically preoccupied with romantic turmoil and found major-label success after its songs appeared on the soundtracks to TV shows like The OC and Six Feet Under. Lead singer Ben Gibbard, using a faux-brit accent, offered renditions of songs like from their new album, Narrow Stairs. The audience reaction to both groups was polite but tepid.
Stepping onstage to an approving roar at around 9:30, Young played a setlist that leaned heavily on his most arena-friendly hits that pleased the audience. (More completist fans, this reviewer included, might be slightly disappointed that Young didn't play more songs from his back catalogue as he did in his 2007 fall tour.)
Wearing jeans and a paint-splattered blazer, Young started with "Love and Only Love," a mid-tempo rocker from his 1991 album Ragged Glory. Playing "Old Black," his 1953 Gibson Les Paul, Young dug into the first of many extended guitar solos that night. Well-known chestnuts like "Hey Hey, My My," "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere," and "Powderfinger" were heartily received by the audience. Young's backing band, which includes bassist Rick Rosas, lap steel player Ben Keith, drummer Chad Cromwell, and Young's wife, Pegi, on backup vocals and vibes, capably filled in for Young's longtime collaborators, Crazy Horse.
Young interrupted the journey through his golden oldies with a rendition of "Spirit Road," a bluesy number from his most recent album, Chrome Dreams II. Unfortunately, this newer number meandered.
After Crazy Horse standards "Cortez the Killer" and "Cinnamon Girl," Young dialled back the volume knob and strapped on his acoustic and harmonica for his version of Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me." A string of Young's less noisy work ensued, including "Mother Earth," "The Needle And the Damage Done," "Unknown Legend," and "Heart of Gold," which became a giant sing-along, andpeppy version of "Get Back to the Country." When Young offered another Harvest classic, "Old Man," written in his twenties, it almost felt as though he was channelling an earlier version of himself singing the song to himself now.
Young followed these old favourites with a few new songs. "Just Singing A Song" details Young's ambivalence about music's ability to change the world "Sea Change" and "When Worlds Collide" seem to offer Young's takes on tempestuousness of everyday life.
After closing out the show with"Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Rockin' in the Free World," Young returned to stage not with one of his own songs, but a cover of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," with Young, who has previously coverd John Lennon's "Imagine," recreating the original's orchestral parts on his booming electric guitar to good effect.
When asked by Rolling Stone about Young's lyric, "it's better to burnt out than to fade away," John Lennon declared, "I hate it. It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out." With his jowly cheeks and his thinning and gray hair, Young, at sixty-two years of age, Young looks more like his father, journalist and author Scott Young, than the shy, dark-eyed guitarist from Buffalo Springfield pictured on his self-titled debut album, which was released exactly forty years ago. Still soldiering headlong into the future, Young doesn't seem quite ready to burnt out or fade away.