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=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: kosmo vinyl on June 26, 2003, 08:36:00 am
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Anyone else make the trek out to Columbia last night to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse perform Neil's latest project "Greendale"? Called a "musical novel" Greendale which Neil staged by having onstage actors playing the characters in his songs. Had it been almost anyone else the staging of Greendale could have been a bit pretentious, but Neil has that air of being a regular down to earth guy. It was folksy a bit like a rock and roll version of "News from Lake Wobegon". Looking forward to the release of "Greendale" later this fall.
Kosmette went along in part to hear Lucinda Williams an artist she really enjoys. I ended being converted and will definitely want to see her headline sometime. Anyone who uses Paul Westerburg as a song insipiration is alright by me.
Ticket sidebar... My tickets which were once thought to be in the pit even though they were located in the left loge. Ended up being the first row of the loge, and while great seats for seeing the bands not so hot for seeing the all the action in the Greendale performance.
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I went to the Neil show last night and came away disappointed. Had I known this was the show we were going to get, there's no way I would have plunked down ~$90/ticket (including service charges). It wasn't bad, but the novelty of the stage show wore thin after about an hour. The highlights for me were the acoustic song, the song on the organ and the rockin' last tune of the main set. All in all - I was hoping Crazy Horse would have rocked a little harder. It was just kind of dull.
And, of course, the encore was terrific, but it was also a little annoying. It was almost like he was saying "This is the show you could have had."
"They give you this, but you paid for that." Indeed.
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Well this sounds like a bummer. We're going to his show in upstate NY on July 4.
So how much older material did they actually play? And what songs?
I used to be much more of a Lucinda fan. Haven't cared too much for the last two albums. I've seen her at least a half dozen times in the last 10+ years...though I always found her to be better on record than live.
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I rather enjoyed the new material which could some of the songs could have been trimmed a little. the last song "Bring the rain" with all the students dancing on stage was a bit to up with people for me. the Greendale stuff is mellow in comparsion to his usual Crazy Horse material. But then again "Silver & Gold" was mellow as well.
The old songs played in the encores where
Hey Hey My My (Into The Black)
Powderfinger
(one i don't know the title too)
And a snarling version of Rocking in the free world. I hate how it a became a post 9/11 anthem because of the chorus, when it's actually a commentary on the seedy side of American life.
checkout http://www.hyperrust.org/Tour2003/ (http://www.hyperrust.org/Tour2003/) for other show setlists
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Originally posted by kosmo:
Anyone else make the trek out to Columbia last night to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse perform Neil's latest project "Greendale"?
I posted a live show of this tour about a week ago on here and got exactly no response.Before forking over that much cash,you might want to listen to what your in store for.Look for it in the archives.
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their other song was "prisoners of rock and roll"... and isn't the live show on the internet just the acoustic sans crazy horse version?
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Originally posted by kosmo:
their other song was "prisoners of rock and roll"... and isn't the live show on the internet just the acoustic sans crazy horse version?
Yes,but I think the setlist is about the same,from what I understand.
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Those were students, eh? They looked like Abercrombie and Fitch models to me.
I'm glad I went but I'd have to agree that it was disappointing. I guess when you're Neil Young you can do whatever you want.
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I was there and thought it was a really good show. Definitely unique and a totally cool production. Sounds like I'm in the minority though. I can't wait for the album to come out so I can dig into the story more. If you were looking for Neil's greatest hits, you were SOL.
"For me, it's about the chance to be new, rather than a big celebration of me, which we had to avoid at all costs," he says of his decision to play nearly two hours of new material before his audience gets its nostalgic itch scratched for oldies such as "Old Man" and "After the Goldrush." "I don't believe in just doing my hits, because you can only do that so many times, and then you just repeat yourself. At this stage in my career, that would be the kiss of death. You might as well go to Vegas and just collect. I don't want to do that yet, and hopefully I can avoid doing that for a long time."
From this article (http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/arts/chi-0305250372may25,0,6567189.story?coll=chi-leisurearts-hed)
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Originally posted by emmy:
Those were students, eh? They looked like Abercrombie and Fitch models to me.
I'm glad I went but I'd have to agree that it was disappointing. I guess when you're Neil Young you can do whatever you want.
i'm figuring a majority of the young extras were either local high school or college students hired to perform. possible via the performing acts departments. it would be expensive to bring them all long for the entire tour.
neilyoung.com has most of the info one would need about the greendale record/dvd. it has a map of the town, family tree, neil's in between song narrative and the script.
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Yes, but why not do this sort of thing in a theater rather than in front of 20,000 people? Or bill it for what it is, not as a Neil Young concert.
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it is a neil young concert, it's just he decided to instead of just doing the greendale album with just crazy horse as his backup. to bring the "musical novel" alive. i was a bit sketical when i found out what he was doing, but as one reviewer pointed it's still crazy horse so you can get off on the music.
unlike the glass spider tour fiasco david bowie did way back... which was horrid, this actually was a great way to present an album and concept.
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Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
Yes, but why not do this sort of thing in a theater rather than in front of 20,000 people? Or bill it for what it is, not as a Neil Young concert.
My guess, Neil gets more money this way.
1. It's his bill, hence most of the profits.
2. More seats resulting in many more dollars.
I've heard he's a major control freak and that his farm is almost cult-like with his followers; I mean his fans; living, working and worshipping there.
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Yes, but the point is balance. Most artists strike a balance between their new stuff and their old stuff.
With newer acts, you might get quite a bit more new stuff, especially if they only have a couple of albums.
With the rock legends, you usually get mostly old stuff, with some new stuff thrown in to (hopefully) show that the artist is still relevant.
For a rock legend to do all new unreleased material and then tack on a few of the classics at the end strikes me as reeking of self-indulgent asshole-ism.
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Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
For a rock legend to do all new unreleased material and then tack on a few of the classics at the end strikes me as reeking of self-indulgent asshole-ism.
either that or they are just so conceited that they think their new material is so good that the old material is obsolete. But I guess if you are a legend its pretty easy to get out of touch with reality and what fans want.
But its hard to draw the line as REM look sad and desperate doing their greatest hits tour....
Cinerama did well 3 new songs 3 wedding present songs (from the 80's). About 5 songs from last years album and about 3 from the one before that.
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Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
For a rock legend to do all new unreleased material and then tack on a few of the classics at the end strikes me as reeking of self-indulgent asshole-ism.
i don't know all the details, but the release date of the greendale cd/dvd has become later and later.
what difference is it anyways whether or not the material is has been released or not... those jimmy buffet fans showing up at a neil young concert wouldn't have bought the new record anyways and wouldn't have appreciated it released or unreleased. the neil young fans sure seem to appreciate the show.
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Originally posted by Jaguär:
\My guess, Neil gets more money this way.
1. It's his bill, hence most of the profits.
2. More seats resulting in many more dollars.
I've heard he's a major control freak and that his farm is almost cult-like with his followers; I mean his fans; living, working and worshipping there. [/QB]
well the same could be said for Radiohead, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, etc etc etc
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Perhaps I'm prejudging the show without having gone to it yet, but as a longtime Neil Young fan...I'd be happy to hear 30-40 mins of his new stuff mixed into a 2-2.5 hour show. I would welcome it with open arms. Sure, he's had high and low points in his career, but he managed to make great albums in the 70's and 90's, and even one in the 80's....So it's not that his new music would be irrelevant.
But the fact remains that he has a long storied career and I want a balance of materials from various parts.
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Originally posted by kosmo:
Originally posted by Jaguär:
\My guess, Neil gets more money this way.
1. It's his bill, hence most of the profits.
2. More seats resulting in many more dollars.
I've heard he's a major control freak and that his farm is almost cult-like with his followers; I mean his fans; living, working and worshipping there. [/b]
well the same could be said for Radiohead, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, etc etc etc [/QB]
Yes but they aren't presenting a play of sorts, which is why, I'm assuming, Rhett asked his original question. I wasn't there so don't know for sure but it does sound like something that may have been more suited to a smaller setting.
Depends on the production. Some shows can shrink a venue and others can't.
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i know what your saying... and had the new material sucked it would have been a crap show. many reviewers are calling this his best material in years. drive by trucker patterson hood is quoted as saying it's his favorite neil young record since "freedom". in all honest the dramatization of the songs does detracts from the experience, especially if one can't see the entire stage.
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How did Patterson Hood get an advance copy, and where can I get one so I'll know the songs before I see the show?
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Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
How did Patterson Hood get an advance copy, and where can I get one so I'll know the songs before I see the show?
his comments were based on seeing the show in atlanta... i'm sure he has other connections :)
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Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
Or bill it for what it is, not as a Neil Young concert.
It's been pretty well publicized, do a quick goggle search.
I doubt you'll be disappointed once you see it. The music was good and had an old school Crazy Horse feel to it. The story and theatrics just upped everything a notch.
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Neil is not presenting Greendale in the traditional music theater method where individual actors have speaking roles and it designed to presented in a concert venue. It's like the Crazy Horse tours of yore with the huge amps and the roadies in their robes and their light bulb eyes. Neil serves as the "plays" narrator providing background information between each song. As Crazy Horse and Neil is performing each song the actors become a live musical video taking on role of the different characters in the song. Neil could have chosen just to do the Greendale song cycle without the actors and sets. He just likes to keep people guessing...
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Didn't Styx do something like this with Mr. Roboto? If so, Neil Young should reconsider his performance.
Originally posted by kosmo:
Neil is not presenting Greendale in the traditional music theater method where individual actors have speaking roles and it designed to presented in a concert venue. It's like the Crazy Horse tours of yore with the huge amps and the roadies in their robes and their light bulb eyes. Neil serves as the "plays" narrator providing background information between each song. As Crazy Horse and Neil is performing each song the actors become a live musical video taking on role of the different characters in the song. Neil could have chosen just to do the Greendale song cycle without the actors and sets. He just likes to keep people guessing...
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Originally posted by thirsty moore:
[QB]
Didn't Styx do something like this with Mr. Roboto? If so, Neil Young should reconsider his performance.
Acting out a song...sounds like a music video to me.
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Amen, brother, that shit is just corny.
Originally posted by thirsty moore:
Didn't Styx do something like this with Mr. Roboto? If so, Neil Young should reconsider his performance.
Originally posted by kosmo:
Neil is not presenting Greendale in the traditional music theater method where individual actors have speaking roles and it designed to presented in a concert venue. It's like the Crazy Horse tours of yore with the huge amps and the roadies in their robes and their light bulb eyes. Neil serves as the "plays" narrator providing background information between each song. As Crazy Horse and Neil is performing each song the actors become a live musical video taking on role of the different characters in the song. Neil could have chosen just to do the Greendale song cycle without the actors and sets. He just likes to keep people guessing...
[/b]
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Originally posted by kosmo:
Neil is not presenting Greendale in the traditional music theater method where individual actors have speaking roles and it designed to presented in a concert venue. It's like the Crazy Horse tours of yore with the huge amps and the roadies in their robes and their light bulb eyes. Neil serves as the "plays" narrator providing background information between each song. As Crazy Horse and Neil is performing each song the actors become a live musical video taking on role of the different characters in the song. Neil could have chosen just to do the Greendale song cycle without the actors and sets. He just likes to keep people guessing...
Oh, God! It sounds like Neil Young and the Polyphonic Spree show. :roll:
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I will bring my binoculars, as we will be on the lawn. With a 50% chance of rain, I now know to skip the show if it rains.
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go for the music and ignore whats going on behind the band... but besure to close your eyes during the closing number "bring the rain". there are some female backing vocalists which spice up the mix too...
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We caught this show on July 4th. Neil seemed to have pared down the Greendale thing, as it lasted only 85 mins. I think maybe he just omitted any between song narration that may have been eating up time.
The Greendale stuff was not horrible, and I think the first and last songs could stand on their own as parts of future set lists. The play was sort of meandering.
He returned for a 7 song, 65 minute set of classics that fucking rocked. Who said 57 year old hippies can't rock?
Lucinda's set was good, though a couple of her new songs she played were pretty weak. I've always liked her better on disc than live anyway.
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Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
Lucinda's set was good, though a couple of her new songs she played were pretty weak. I've always liked her better on disc than live anyway.
I really like her new single,titled righteously,it is about her ex Billy something or other,good song.Mojo has a good article on her,apparently she loves the suds.
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Don't you think it's a little bit silly for a 50 year old white woman to sing the lyric "Why you wanna be dissin' me, I love you righteously"?
Originally posted by SPARX:
Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
Lucinda's set was good, though a couple of her new songs she played were pretty weak. I've always liked her better on disc than live anyway.
I really like her new single,titled righteously,it is about her ex Billy something or other,good song.Mojo has a good article on her,apparently she loves the suds. [/b]
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Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
[QB] Don't you think it's a little bit silly for a 50 year old white woman to sing the lyric "Why you wanna be dissin' me, I love you righteously"?
Whats wrong with being silly?
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Nothing at all, if you're trying to be silly. It just makes me cringe to hear her attempt to use slang that's really not part of her culture.
Otherwise, I agree, it is an excellent song that totally rocks live.
Originally posted by SPARX:
Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
[QB] Don't you think it's a little bit silly for a 50 year old white woman to sing the lyric "Why you wanna be dissin' me, I love you righteously"?
Whats wrong with being silly? [/b]
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I love that song I confess to not knowing who Lucinda williams is.... From that song I would have guessed she was thirty.
Does anyone know if I like that song if I will find any of her albums enjoyable?
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Uh-oh run for the hills. Markie's starting to like alt-country. She was probably my favorite artists way back in the early 90's...
The object of cultish adoration for years, singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams was universally hailed as a major talent by both critics and fellow musicians, but it took quite some time for her to parlay that respect into a measure of attention from the general public. Part of the reason was her legendary perfectionism: Williams released records only infrequently, often taking years to hone both the material and the recordings thereof. Plus, her early catalog was issued on smaller labels that agreed to her insistence on creative control but didn't have the resources or staying power to fully promote her music. Yet her meticulous attention to detail and staunch adherence to her own vision were exactly what helped build her reputation. When Williams was at her best (and she often was), even her simplest songs were rich in literary detail, from her poetic imagery to her flawed, conflicted characters. Her singing voice, whose limitations she readily acknowledged, nonetheless developed into an evocative instrument that seemed entirely appropriate to her material. So if some critics described Williams as "the female Bob Dylan," they may have been oversimplifying things (Townes Van Zandt might be more apt), but the parallels were certainly too strong to ignore.Williams was born in Lake Charles, LA, on January 26, 1953. Her father was Miller Williams, a literature professor and published poet who passed on not only his love of language, but also of Delta blues and Hank Williams. The family moved frequently, as Miller took teaching posts at colleges around Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, and even Mexico City and Santiago, Chile. Meanwhile, Lucinda discovered folk music (especially Joan Baez) through her mother and was galvanized into trying her own hand at singing and writing songs after hearing Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. Immersed in a college environment, she was also exposed to '60s rock and more challenging singer/songwriters like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. She started performing folk songs publicly in New Orleans and during the family's sojourn in Mexico City. In 1969, she was ejected from high school for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and she spent a year working her way through a reading list supplied by her father before leaving home.Williams performed around New Orleans as a folk artist who mixed covers with traditional-styled originals. In 1974, she relocated to Austin, TX, and became part of that city's burgeoning roots-music scene; she later split time between Austin and Houston, and then moved to New York. A demo tape got her the chance to record for the Smithsonian's Folkways label, and she went to Jackson, MS, to lay down her first album at the Malaco studios. Ramblin' on My Mind (later retitled simply Ramblin') was released in 1979 and featured a selection of traditional blues, country, folk, and Cajun songs. Williams returned to Houston to record the follow-up, 1980's Happy Woman Blues. As her first album of original compositions, it was an important step forward, and although it was much more bound by the dictates of tradition than her genre-hopping later work, her talent was already in evidence.However, it would be some time before that talent was fully realized. Williams flitted between Austin and Houston during the early '80s, then moved to Los Angeles in 1984, where she started to attract some major-label interest. CBS signed her to a development deal in the mid-'80s but wound up passing since neither its rock nor its country divisions knew how to market her; around the same time, a short-lived marriage to drummer Greg Sowders dissolved. Williams eventually caught on with an unlikely partner â?? the British indie label Rough Trade, which was historically better known for its punk output. The simply titled Lucinda Williams was released in 1988, and although it didn't make any waves in the mainstream, it received glowing reviews from those who did hear it. With help from guitarist/co-producer Gurf Morlix, Williams' sound had evolved into a seamless blend of country, blues, folk, and rock; while it made perfect sense to roots-music enthusiasts, it didn't fit into the rigid tastes of radio programmers. But it was clear that she had found her songwriting voice â?? the album brimmed with confidence, and so did its assertive female characters, who seemed to answer only to their own passions.Many critics hailed Lucinda Williams as a major statement by a major new talent. Rough Trade issued a couple of EPs that featured live performances and material from Lucinda Williams, and Patty Loveless covered "The Night's Too Long" for a Top 20 country hit. However, it would be four years before Williams completed her official follow-up. She signed with RCA for a time but left when she felt that the label was pressuring her to release material she didn't deem ready for public consumption. Instead, she went to the small Elektra-distributed label Chameleon, which finally released Sweet Old World in 1992. A folkier outing than Lucinda Williams, Sweet Old World was an unflinching meditation on death, loss, and regret. Even its upbeat moments were colored by songs like the title track and "Pineola," two stunning, heartbreaking accounts of a family friend's suicide (poet Frank Stanford, not, as many listeners assumed, Williams' own brother). Needless to say, the record won rave reviews once again, and Williams toured Australia with Rosanne Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter.On that tour, Carpenter decided to record "Passionate Kisses," the key track and statement of purpose from Lucinda Williams. It shot into the country Top Five in 1993 and won its writer a Grammy for Country Song of the Year. Other artists soon started mining Williams' back catalog for material: avowed fan Emmylou Harris recorded "Crescent City" on 1993's Cowgirl's Prayer and cut "Sweet Old World" for her 1995 alternative country landmark Wrecking Ball; plus, Tom Petty covered "Changed the Locks" for 1996's movie-related She's the One. As the buzz around Williams grew, so did anticipation for her next album. With Chameleon having gone under, she signed with Rick Rubin's American Recordings label and began sessions with Morlix again co-producing. Dissatisfied with the results, Williams' rigorous retouchings led to Morlix's departure from the project and her backing band. In 1995, she moved into Harris' neighborhood in Nashville and through Harris hired Steve Earle and his production partner Ray Kennedy. At first, she was so enamored with their work that she re-recorded the entire album from scratch. When it was finished, she decided that the results sounded too produced, and took the record to Los Angeles, where she enlisted Roy Bittan (onetime E Street Band keyboardist) to co-produce a series of overdub sessions that bordered on obsessive. During the long wait for the album, the media began to pay more attention to Williams; some of the coverage was fairly unflattering, painting her as a neurotic control freak, but she always countered that it was unfair to criticize the process if the results were worthwhile.Rubin mixed the final tracks, but the album was further delayed when he entered into negotiations to sell the American label. Mercury stepped in to purchase the rights to the album, which was finally released in 1998 under the title Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Boasting a bright, contemporary roots rock sound with strong country and blues flavors, not to mention major-label promotional power, the album won universal acclaim, making many critics' year-end Top Ten lists and winning The Village Voice's prestigious Pazz & Jop survey. It also won Williams a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album (despite being the least folk-oriented record in her catalog) and became her first to go gold, proving to doubters that she was not just a songwriter, but a full-fledged recording artist in her own right. After a merger shakeup at Mercury, Williams wound up on the Universal-distributed roots imprint Lost Highway. She was the subject of an extensive, widely acclaimed profile in The New Yorker in 2000, written by Bill Buford, who was nominated for a National Magazine Award for his work; however, Williams and some of her supporters took issue with some of his more objective-minded analysis.Williams delivered her next album, Essence, in 2001, after a relatively scant wait of just three years. An introspective collection, it often found Williams taking a simpler, more minimalistic lyrical approach and was greeted with rapturous reviews in most quarters. The track "Get Right With God" won Williams her third Grammy, this time for Best Female Rock Vocal, which further consolidated her credibility as a singer, not just a songwriter. Paring down the time between album releases even further, Williams returned in 2003 with World Without Tears, which became her highest-charting effort to date when it debuted in the Top 20
Originally posted by the scientist:
I love that song I confess to not knowing who Lucinda williams is.... From that song I would have guessed she was thirty.
Does anyone know if I like that song if I will find any of her albums enjoyable?