Neil Young: Rockin' in the Free World on the 4th of July

by Thomas Dimopoulos

SARATOGA SPRINGS - Neil Young came to SPAC on the Fourth of July and he brought the entire town of Greendale with him.

Strapping on a gold-top Les Paul, Young took the stage with his longtime band Crazy Horse. That's where all familiarity ended.

The prolific songwrite, rwhose best known works color most of the second half of the 20th
century, played few familiar tunes. Instead, he opted to stage a yet to be released 10 song rock opera (which he calls a "musical novel"), that celebrates the people and stories of a fictionalized town called Greendale.

The opus began pleasantly enough, with the country-rock tinged opener 'Falling From Above." It segued into a rumbling blues dirge, reminiscent of the Rolling Stones'
Midnight Rambler- esque riff, called "Double E."

"We're gonna' play a few new songs for you tonight," Young announced to the faithful, many of whom seemed to come prepared for the experience. "But I haven't forgotten my old songs.
I'll play them later," Young assured.

Fans looking for a method to young's creative "madness" were clued in early on.
"Seems like that guy singing this song been doin' it for a long time," Young, the narrator, vocalized on one of the new tunes. "Is there anything he knows that he ain't said?"

Young's process of creatively re-inventing himself is a rare and admirable trait among pop performers.
I have had the opportunity to watch Young perform on two previous occassions. In the fall of 1978 at Madison Square Garden, Young debuted a then-unknown tune which resonated with the memorable refrain "Johnny Rotten! Johnny Rotten!" In the early 90s, at the RPI Fieldhouse in Troy, N.Y. Young shared the bill with Sonic Youth and Social Distortion, challenging himself to expand upon the soaring tones of his own electric guitar.

Then, as now, Young is full of surprises and, for the most part, the SPAC audience was willing to hear what their guitar hero had to say.

They waited him out and eventually hit paydirt with a seven song, explosive finale that delivered emotionally charged performances of "My My Hey Hey," "Powderfinger,"
"Like a Hurricane," and "Rockin' In The Free World."

For the opening 10 song "Greendale" sequence, the band riffed on blues and dropped some boogie on the crowd while actors mimed the words on stage. The dancers danced and a lard overhead video screen pushed the action forward, interacting at times with the emergence of mourning widows, a red booted Satan, bleak gray tombstones and the town police department.

The problem was in the new material's length.
Despite the ongoing activity in multiple areas of the stage, 90-plus minutes of new material is
a lot to ask of even the most devout Neil audience. Musically as well, many of the tunes were similar in tone, sounding like outtakes from Young's "Tonight's The Night." "Zuma," and
"On The Beach" era of work.

Still, there were high points. Young was at his best during his left-handed swipes at the political and corporate status quo. In one sequence, a giant red, white & blue billboard sarcastically proclaimed: "Clear Channel: Support Our War," was greeted by a rousing audience reaction.

In another, video images showed a Pentagon news conference and snippets of Tom Ridge & John Ashcroft, and as a CNN-like graphic flashed across the screen that read "Patriot Act," Young sang the lyric:
"There's no need to worry/There's no need to fuss/ Just go about your work/And leave the
driving to us."
As he continued "You can do your part/By watching others too," the lights inside the amphitheater glowed a blinding yellow, so we could all, supposedly, keep an eye on one another.

Other highlights included the touching solo acoustic version of a song called "Bandit" and the vintage Neil distorto licks that the guitarist played in the song "Grandpa's Interview."
During the grand finale, "Be the Rain," the stage filled with dozens of characters involved in the "Greendale" production.

As the hippie-fied rocker grew to an anthemic crescendo, Young choked the neck of his guitar with the sort of vintage ferocious intensity that has enthralled rock & roll fans for decades.

A brief respite brought Young and Crazy Horse back on stage together on an otherwise barren stage, burning through a seven song finale that peaked with the evening closer, "Rockin' in the Free World."

published in The Saratogian, July 6, 2003,