Some concerts have a way of becoming "historical events" the more they are documented. The big festivals like Woodstock and Live Aid certainly are more than historical footnotes in the conciousness of the music listening public, but the smaller shows also have an important place in history as well. Every once in a while the archives serve up one of these musical time capsules, a slice of time, a musical millisecond, and allow us to view artists from a perspective or point in their career literally lost to the march of time. Such is the case with the new release by Neil Young & Crazy Horse.
Recorded live at the Fillmore East in 1970, the end of a turbulent decade, the beginning of a new, this six-song disc captures a young-ish Neil Young, post-C,S,N&Y, post-Buffalo Springfield, starting up with a new band, Crazy Horse, way way before their movie
Rust Never Sleeps and accompanying album
Live Rust propelled the band's career to the heights of superstardom.
Featuring the second act in a three-act bill that opened with the Steve Miller Band and closed with jazz legend Miles Davis, this six-song disk is a musical snaphot of a moment in time, catching Neil immediately after his debut solo album. This is especially so since it includes guitar work by the late Danny Whitten, who played with Crazy Horse only until his death in 1972. This disk contains some blisteringly long extended versions of "Down By The River" and "Cowgirl In The Sand." This is the first of a series of planned releases from Neil Young's archives, and it will be interesting to see what comes next. I liked this disc, it won't replace
Live Rust in my collection, but it makes a fine addendum.
Track list after the jump.
1. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
2. Winterlong
3. Down By The River
4. Wonderin'
5. Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown
6. Cowgirl In The Sand