Chris Zbar Becraft's report
Jason First and Last Gonulsen's review
(more reviews coming)
Also See:
The show details.
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C S N Y Tour Of America |
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Chris Zbar Becraft's report
Jason First and Last Gonulsen's review
(more reviews coming)
Also See:
The show details.
My brother John from Indy made the trip to St.Louis to join me as we sat in the 4th row in front of Nash for a great show.
General review: The boys were in fine shape all night and sounded great. It was great to see the <BSEG> on Neil's face throughout the show whenever he jammed head to head with Stephen. Neil seemed to prefer jamming with the drummer more than with anyone else. He spent a good portion of the night facing the drums with his back to the audience.
All in all a great show. Graham sings the words to every song as my brother seemed to note, we also suspected Graham was baked but it could have been us. : )
First set highlights:
Third set highlight: Long Time Gone
One last side note, although I dug the riff to Let's Roll, I thought it came off as "obvious" and quite frankly the sooner Neil shelves this song the better.
This show definitely fired me up to see Neil get back out with Crazy Horse and extend some of these jams. He looks fit and ready to ride the Horse.
Okay, here goes nuthin... (This is all from memory -- no notes.)
They came on at about 8:10 -- I spotted Crosby first. Neil was following Stills, I think; had a big smile. They all took their places and broke into Carry On, which sounded MUCH better than CSNY 2000, in my opinion. Excellent change into the Questions portion of the song. I think Stills had a senior moment on this one though, stepping up to the mic too quickly; got a laugh from Neil. You could tell they were having fun from the beginning...
Went into Military Madness, which was nice, but needs some work. Neil went off a couple of times, it was cool. Neil and Nash looked really “in” to this one, both sang the “killing my country” line emphatically.
Next came Ol’Black and Neil went into Goin’ Home. Seemed MUCH slower than the Crazy Horse version -— this is not the same song, in my opinion, that we have heard from the Euro Tour. It was great —- don’t get me wrong —- but it was different. The vocals sounded superb -— very nice job with the sound the whole night. It looked to me that Neil was having problems with Ol’Black (he had a chat with Larry after the song). Nash mentioned that Goin' Home would be on Neil’s new album. Received a nice ovation.
Pre-Road Downs was nice, but nothing new from 2 years ago. They looked like they were having fun with it though. False start before the song: Nash screwed up, drawing laughs from CS and Y. Crosby remarked that it was nice to see “Nash finally screw up.”
Wooden Ships worked well. The crowd seemed to enjoy the way Nash, Stills and Crosby traded vocals. This one was probably the crowd favorite up to this point in the show.
Feed The People lost some people, I think. They lost some momentum at this point in the show. Neil introduced the song, saying “We worked on this at the hotel last night. We haven’t done it before like this yet.” Neil and Stills seemed really into this one, but I don’t think the crowd liked it too much. It just seemed too direct, not a lot there.
Nash introduced Neil’s next song. Then Neil said, “I’m gonna do this for my girl Amber.” Nice tune; kinda odd that this will be the first track on the new album. Nash was really into it, pumping his fists. I think Crosby busted out his silly dance moves that haven’t gotten any better from 2 years ago. The crowd sat down for most of it, but it was well received. However, most of the new material seemed to lose the crowd during the performances.
Nash again introduced the next song saying that “it was a really old one.” Not a highlight, saw many people go get beers.
Southern Man got everybody up on their feet. They looked like they were having A LOT of fun during this one, forming a nice jam circle once or twice. Excellent performance, nothing really new from 2000, but always great to hear. Neil said “thanks” after this one as he did with many other of his songs.
49 Bye-Byes kinda lost me, and lost some of the crowd also. It picked up towards the end, but seemed out of place in the set list.
Almost Cut My Hair was well received and Crosby sounded very strong. Lots of jamming, lots of smiles from the stage.
Went right into Cinnamon Girl and the crowd went nuts. Nice version, perfect choice to close out the first set -— just like CSNY 2000.
I went up by the stage during intermission, said hi to Larry Cragg, who gave me a wave and smiled.
The acoustic set was better than 2000. MUCH better. Stills sounded better, Nash and Crosby were pumped... Neil kinda took a back seat during this set -— but his tunes, Old Man and Harvest Moon, were definitely two of the crowd favorites.
Helplessly Hoping was perfectly delivered. The sound was awesome, it just sounded much tighter than last time. Nash dedicated Our House to someone who had birthday in the crowd. Had many people singing along. Old Man was excellent, drew many cheers. Larry was on banjo.
Next came Guinnevere, which Crosby introduced as “a song that we haven’t done before on this tour.” Nash corrected him and added that Crosby obviously “smoked a lot more dope than he did.” They nailed this one and Nash and Crosby knew it—it was obvious.
Dream For Him was ok, but I wouldn’t have minded if they had dropped the Looking Forward songs completely.
Nash then said this abut Harvest Moon: “Neil wrote a song that appeared on one of his recent albums that... it was one of those songs that David and I wished we could have been there to sing it with him. The song, well, you’ll see what I mean.” I must say that this was the best HM version I have ever heard live. I am so happy they did this one, it fit perfectly.
Ole Man Trouble was performed well, Stills tried his damn best.
Half Your Angels was a pleasant surprise. The crowd was nice and quiet for this as they were for most of the acoustic set (which Nash complimented us on). Great song. Drew a nice response from the crowd. Nash seemed very emotional after it was done, thanking the crowd for the nice ovation. Definitely a highlight of the night. Nash introduced it as a song for “all the people we lost in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania.”
SJBE was great. Got the Stills acoustic solo, which he nailed for sure.
The "7th Inning Stretch" worked once again. Everybody sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame nice and loud.
Let’s Roll was great, I loved it -— but it didn’t seem to have the effect that they would have liked, in my opinion. They haven’t been playing it on St Louis radio and I don’t know if many people recognized it.
Nice long jam on Long Time Gone. Sweet tune, better than 2000.
Two Old Friends had people sitting down, but it was nice and quiet and was once again well received. I think the crowd liked all of the new Neil songs, but most of the crowd just didn’t recognize them. I really like this new tune from Neil. When Neil sang “In my old black heart” he seemed to be drawing a heart with his free hand in the air. Neil DID have some trouble with the high vocal -- I really wonder if they will keep on doing this one because of this.
Woodstock got everybody going again. Reworked a little bit to compensate for Stills’ vocals.
Rockin' In The Free World was, well, rockin' as always. The only differences from CSNY 2000 were that Neil didn’t destroy his strings and that they didn’t sing the full chorus ("Keep on rockin in the free world...") a full 4 times like in 2000.
Encores were great. Long May You Run was nice, and it appeared to be it, but Neil looked like he persuaded the guys to do one more. Neil then said “Ok, we’ll do one more.” Crosby laughed and kinda pointed at Neil, as to say, “what a Bozo!” So we got Eight Miles High and some very nice jams from Neil and Stills.
Ended at about 11:35. Great show, would definitely do it again.
I want to mention that I was really impressed by Nash throughout the whole evening. Just seems like a genuinely nice guy with a great attitude towards music -— and VERY respectful of his bandmates.
None of you will be disappointed.
Jason
First and last
(more reviews coming...)