Wilco opened. I'm always interested in what they are doing, even if I don't like all of what they do. I sometimes can't believe how far Jeff Tweedy has come since the Uncle Tupelo days but I'm glad and impressed by what he has done. A six piece band since the last time I saw them, the 9 song set had lots of joyous noisy endings. Didn't knock me out, but liked most of it. Solid.
As for Neil Young: what is there to say? The man has been making good music for longer than I've been alive. I will always go see him play, no matter what tour it is or what his last record release was. The first part of the set was the highlight for me, with the first ten songs including Hey Hey My My, Powderfinger, Everybody Knows this Nowhere, Oh Lonesome Me, Cinnamon Girl, Needle and the Damage Done and maybe the best version of Cortez the Killer I've ever heard. Stunning. The ;atter part of the set was lamer, as it usually is, with lots of his newer, topical call-and-response crap ("Cough Up the Bucks? Please). He's gotta play the new stuff, I get it, but his ticket prices seem to go up as the new song quality goes down. I know he can't just play the oldies, but we were debating how many hours Neil could play without playing a crappy song. Three hours? Longer?? As it was we got about 2:45 of Neil, with about 40% being decent.
In case you forget sometimes, the 63-year old man still completely rips it up on guitar. More energy than bands full of kids 40 years younger than him, he gets such a great sound, so full and big and clean. Still blows me away.
I can't get over how expensive tickets at almost $100 a pop for GA standing room on the floor, but being on center court at MSG is always cool. And those 'seats' are the place to be, good views and lots of space. I only came into mine as a Christmas present at the last minute when SL got sick and I got to be Greg's replacement date.
I can still remember listening to Live Rust with my family in our blue wood-paneled Country Squire station wagon. We had a tape we played over and over again on vacation travels; and because my older brother brought Neil into my life when I was about ten, I will always and forever love Neil. Live Rust is still one of my favorite records and I'm going to go listen to it right now.
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2 comments:
damn. wish i'd known there were standing tix. i woulda gone. nothing i hate worse than a seated concert ... well, not entirely true ... i hate bin laden more ... and kickball.
I think they have those tix a lot at MSG for shows. Believe it was sold out but also read that you could pick up GA standing tix on Craig's list yesterday for under face value.
concerts should be $30, max.
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