Rotterdam, Netherlands Neil Young Concert Reviews: 6/7/09
"Mansion On The Hill"
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by thrasher@PermaLink: 6/07/2009 05:12:00 PM
14 comments
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14 Comments:
Great concert, lots of energy. not many changes in the setlist:
LOVE AND ONLY LOVE
HEY HEY, MY MY
EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE
POCAHONTAS
SPIRIT ROAD
CORTEZ THE KILLER
CINNAMON GIRL
MOTHER EARTH
DON'T LET IT BRING YOU DOWN
LOST IN SPACE
HEART OF GOLD
COMES A TIME
OLD MAN
MANSION ON THE HILL
GET BEHIND THE WHEEL
ROCKIN' IN THE FREE WORLD
LIKE A HURRICANE
Just got home....and its before midnight. 5th show in 2 years, 3rd in Holland.
The show was really good but not the best of the 5. Hayo has the set list nailed.
Highlights......
A really grunge electric Pocohontas. Such a beautiful song when acoustic and to do this to it.....it was awsome. And the 2nd verse came first again.
Cortez was the best i've ever heard. over 10 minutes and every bit as good as any encore he could ever play. kind of peaked early.
I had never heard Mansion on the hill before live and it was really really great. He really got into that song and rocked around the stage.
Three acoustic oldies H.O.G., C.A.T. and O.M. were well played and well received.
Everything else was top shelf Neil.
Crowd was pretty into it.....but didnt look sold out. I was standing about 6 people away from the satage so I couldnt see behind me....but people were buying tickets from the box an hour before show time.
All in all a really solid show and definately worth the drive.
Cheers,
RSS
One more thing, the opening act was pretty good. they played 5 or 6 songs and they were all very passable as an opener for a major gig.
I really like that Neil brings out these acts and they get great exposure. The band was Admiral Freebee from Belgium....the singer sounded like he was from west Texas when he sang but like he was from Brussels when he sopke...pretty funny. They were pretty good.
Last year Neil had Everest opening in the states and they have relaly impressed me too.
Keep on rocking with the new up and coming music.
Cheers
I've seen Neil maybe 8 times now, I think 4 times in Ahoy. This show dissapointed me. It was short (around 1:45), all the hits were there, i found Chad Cromwells drumming on the acoustics way too heavy, and over all Neil made an uninspired impression on me. He worked hard, that's for sure, but his playing on Old Black never reached the level of intensity like last year in the RAI.
Of course, Cortez was OK, I liked Lost in Space a lot, and I was pleased with Love And Only Love as an opener, but tracks like Mansion on the hill and don't let it bring you down did not work for me. Love and only love could have lasted a lot longer for me, it seemed like Neil just did not reach his point of no return.
Anyway, this was the least of all shows I have ever seen from him. I really found the setlist too obvious. I even thought: is this tour meant to promote the archives maybe?
Peter Dees (Holland)
No no Pete - this is the Fork In The Road tour! LOL! :-)
Hate to say it, Peter Dees, but you're spot-on. I had the exact same feeling. Lots of noise, all right, but almost no inspiration. Too many tired old crowd pleasers, more churned out than crafted, from Hey Hey, My My and RITFW up to a truncated Hurricane. Seemed like Neil just wanted to serve up a Greatest Hits powerhouse. What struck me, was the way he seemed to be working all alone during the electric set; almost no 'band-feeling'. Also, no FITR despite my highpitched yelling. Well, you can't have it all...
Well, I saw him 5 times. This was a great show, but unfortunately, as stated above, not too good. He seemed a bit tired, his guitar play was sloppy, more than before. Solo's were more noise than melodies. Although he is known for playing slow-hand, yesterday seemed to be too slow.
The sound wasn't too good either. Bass was only noticable as whap-whap and the second guitar wasn't present at all. It seemed that only Neil and Chat were playing during solo's.
And I missed A day in the life...
i know its all about the money these days but at old shakys age he needs to spread the concert dates out more. he needs to get off the bus for others reasons than playing a gig every other night(or 2 in a row). get out and see the sights, get some fresh air, jam a few songs in a club if you must, but get some rest off the bus man. if you have ever been on a bus or train for 2,3,4 days you know what i mean. neil and his crew do it for 1,2,3, months at a time. at some point his concerts are going to be disapointing more often than not,dont you think?
Just got back from mainland Europe after a weekend with Neil!
I kept away from the setlists before the Antwerp show (lord knows how!) and hoped we'd get a repeat of the Canada shows but it wasn't to be.
Just had a quick glance at the previous set lists and whilst I missed Words I was happy to see Lost in Space so that rescued Rotterdam for me.
At first I was feeling the sets at both shows was too much like last summer (Dublin & Hop Farm for me) but there were some great moments:
Nice new additions - Mansion On the Hill, Comes a Time, I've been waiting for you.
Great songs I missed last year - Cortez, Hurricane & RITFW.
Other feelings were:
not too sure about Pochontas but the Rotterdam version sold it to me - great pedal steel. Great verisons of Cortez, esp Rotterdam. I sensed he didn't really get into Mansion On The Hill in Antwerp but Rotterdam was great version.
Both nights I felt he had another couple of songs in him but decided against it. In Rotterdam he seemed to go off with a wave of the hand.
This pissed me off to be honest - other comments have said he maybe felt the crowd were too quiet and yes they were quiet at times because they were giving the man respect. He seems to get annoyed when people shout out at quiet times but he can't have it both ways.
If you want a crowd to go mad - play a small theatre with crazy horse and take a free reign on the setlist.
I really felt both crowds gave him respect and did make noise when they felt it appropriate and what did they get - a setlist a couple of songs short. The fact is he encored with Hurricane and because you never know when the bloody song is gonna finish you don't always applaud at the right time. Finish the songs in good time and we'll know when to applaud - oh yes you may even be able to fit another song or two in - Cowgirl would be nice or even some new songs - the one he did last night was probably one of the best songs he did! or maybe it was because it was new and fresh.
If he gave us a fresher setlist maybe he would get that better response - we drove through 2 countries to get there in Rotterdam so give us some respect eh Neil - we've always given you it.
By the way - gotta say the Antwerp crowd were brilliant. I think the stage was pushed up a little so it felt more like a large theatre. Ahoy wasn't and that meant the crowd maybe didn't come across as well.
All in all great weekend but slight disappointment with setlists on offer. I personally think he's just getting prepared for the Glasto festival and Hyde Park gigs and treating the others as warmups as these are maybe 2 of his biggest gigs he'll ever do.
Maybe we'll get some surprises in Nottingham & Aberdeen.
Des
UK
Just a few more points - probably came across a bit negative before:
Admiral Freebie were support at both shows and were great. Had a lot of fans at Antwerp and by Rotterdam I too was a fan.
Neil really seemed to be enjoying himself which is why I can't believe he didn;t play a few more songs - I thought after Antwerp he was saving himself for Rotterdam but he played for less time I think - maybe he should ditch Heart of Gold etc to make it fresher for him too.
I always loved the fact this band could play anything which meant we could always be surprised but part of me thinks next tour (!? I live in hope) would be better with CH or vene a different band - Everest maybe?
Hope you guys in Germany get a good setlist in Erfurt - was thinking of going there but no bucks left.
Des
UK
Tweedboy may be right, Neil did look tired. He plunged into the songs head-first rather than slowly working his way into them, and ended them pretty quickly, especially Hurricane.
One of the friends I was with (who first saw Neil perform in the same venue in 1982), however, blamed it on Neil's god-like status these days. He seems to be pretty sure he can do anything he damn well pleases, while in the early days, he needed a band (i.e. Crazy Horse) to give him the boost he needed on stage....
Best show I saw Neil do in Ahoy, by the way, was acoustic live in 1989... He lifted the roof right off the building, just him, a harp and a guitar... Playing Cocaine Eyes, Razor Love, Winterlong.. What a night...
I saw that show in '89 too. And a couple of days before I saw him in the intimate 'Stopera' in Amsterdam. While Ahoy is much, much bigger, the intimacy of that show was just the same as Amsterdam. That really struck me as a big achievement indeed (the setlist was also very good, it was the last show of the tour. Winterlong in the piano was more than I could have hoped for).
But Neil with the Horse around the time of 'Year of the Horse' that was a great, great show too. Long, very long versions of killer guitar-songs (a 20 minute Cortez that was full of 'space' instead the repetetiveness we saw last sunday in almost every song).
I personally think Neil's not a man to be 'walking next to his shoes'. He indeed looked tired.
It also struck me that he has to have auto-cue cards by every song. I was about 20 meters from the stage, sometimes I saw him reading. I cannot imagine this will not influence his concentration on the guitar.
Not to be sour: Neil is always good, I do not complain. It just wasn't as good as I had gotten used to.
Peter Dees (Holland)
Cortez The Killer at Rotterdam Ahoy June 7.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2GmDK8tI_c
Cheers.
RSS
This was my 27th time seeing NY.
I came from Chico CA for this show.
I thought the show too short at only 17 songs. The crowd seemed to be
very into the show at times. He did
look tired but played a decent show.
But going through the motions seems accurate for many numbers also.
Only heard Long Grain once during a slide or peddle steel moment. Heres a tip for Admiral Freebee, if your bands name is dumb dont insist on saying it after every song. Larry Cragg played a brief banjo part on a Harvest tune.
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