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CONCERT REVIEW Neil Young tunes up a spirited performance
Monday, August 21, 2000 By Ed Masley, Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic
Neil Young rolled into Burgettstown last night on a tour in support of the quietest, least-aggressive album in the whisper to a scream that is his decades-long career. But if the history of Young has taught us anything, it's that the man is not about to go quietly into the twilight embrace of VH1 rotation.
Yes, his latest album is an unrelenting snooze.
And, yes, he did give Crazy Horse the summer off.
But last night's Post-Gazette Pavilion show was not without its sparks of ragged glory, even if it was a little heavy on the lighter side of Neil.
He took the stage with conviction to bash out the trashy but soulful garage attack of "Motorcycle Mama," trading verses with his sister and his wife. And the legend was squeezing out sparks on guitar by "Powderfinger," two songs in, steeped in the sort of raw emotion those who've followed his career could be forgiven for taking for granted.
But then, he's got that kind of voice -- unconventional, yes, but capable of mining real emotion in lyrics as seemingly free of emotion as "She used to work in a diner/Never saw a woman look finer," as he did last night on "Unknown Legend."
The early set found Young on electric guitar, from the backwoods country funk of "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" to the gorgeous, understated "I Believe in You" to "Dance Dance Dance," a country charmer with a melody so good he used it both there and in "Love Is a Rose."
He went acoustic with "Buffalo Springfield Again" and, like the other songs that felt a little undernourished on his latest album, it came across in concert with a refreshing immediacy that bordered on real urgency. But even then, the best of what he played acoustically was older ("Harvest Moon," "From Hank to Hendrix," "Peace of Mind").
With family on the harmonies and session aces he calls friends to back him up, the playing was loose, inspired, brilliant, never more so than on "Words," an epic highlight.
Fans who know him only from the radio were more than likely disappointed in a song selection that favored obscurities over the cinnamon girls of the world, but hard-core Young enthusiasts were no doubt thrilled to see their hero blow the dust off treasures as rare and as golden as "Words," "Walk On" and "Winterlong." It was magic.
He ended the set on piano with "Tonight's the Night" in a chilling arrangement that more than lived up to the line about sending "a chill up and down my spine."
He saved his most incendiary playing, though, for an encore performance of "All Along the Watchtower," bringing an amazing evening to an awe-inspiring close.
He didn't have to do "The Loner" or "The Needle and the Damage Done." They were part of a powerful opening set by the great Pretenders. Chrissie Hynde, who's seen the needle and the damage done herself, turned in a poignant reading of the mournful ode to fallen junkies like her own lost band mates James Honeyman Scott and Pete Farndon. In place of the ranting and raving that ruined her set at the A.J. Palumbo earlier this year, she let the music do the talking. And it spoke with quiet dignity on "Kid" and "Hymn to Her," exploding in a well-earned encore of the early classic "Mystery Achievement." In excellent voice throughout, when she did speak, Hynde was surprisingly charming, humbled by the opportunity to "kiss the stage that [Neil Young] stands on every night."
A crowd of 13,570 saw the show.
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