Every time I've been to a concert at Madison Square Garden, I've usually had seats that were OK at best. I had decent ones for the "Bobfest" Dylan tribute in 1992, but when I saw R.E.M. on their Monster tour, I was practically in a different time zone. Same for when I saw the Grateful Dead in 1990.
But last night's show by Neil Young & Wilco settled the score in a big way, as my friends and I found ourselves on the floor, in front of the front-row seats about 15 feet from the stage and about two feet from Bourne Ultimatum actress Julia Stiles. With such a close vantage point, it was easy to forget one was watching a show with 15,000 others; it felt more like Irving Plaza than Madison Square Garden.
The first opening act was Everest, who seemed to be of the same alterna-rustic ilk as Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes and My Morning Jacket. They performed a very Last Waltz-like version of Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" where they were joined on backup vocals by members of Wilco and Neil's band.
Wilco gently opened the show with "You Are My Face" from their most recent record Sky Blue Sky and picked up intensity throughout, driven by the mind-boggling guitar stylings of Nels Cline. Norah Jones sat in on backing vocals for "Jesus, Etc." and Spencer Tweedy, son of Jeff, played drums on a rousing version of "The Late Greats," which may have been the high point of the evening.
Neil Young made the mavericky move of playing a wide assortment of hits, which is never a given for him. "Hey Hey My My," "Powderfinger," "Heart of Gold" and "Everybody Knows this is Nowhere" were just a few of the fan favorites that mighty Neil pulled out of the hat. Someone standing near me was kind enough to film a few songs and post them on YouTube:
"Heart of Gold," MSG 12/16.08
"Cinnamon Girl," MSG 12/16.08
Neil being Neil, he also played a mini-set of songs devoted to his latest passion: biodiesel fuel. He also did a great-sounding version of The Beatles' "A Day in the Life." At least it sounded good on the phone message my friend left me - I had to leave the late-running show to catch a train, and I still didn't get home until 2. As David Letterman used to say, I was tired - but it was a good kind of tired.
6 comments:
Did you calculate "free" into those Dylanfest tix being "OK"? ;-) If I recall, we went to that with Rusty and Michelle Shocked, didn't we?
What about the freebies we got for Oasis? Ingrate!
No disrespect intended gentlemen - both were magical nights. Yes we sat w/Ms. Shocked - didn't she get bumped from playing at the show?
"A day in the life" was an inspired choice to end the show with, though somewhat flawed performance-wise. Neil spaced on the verse right after the middle "woke up, got outta bed..." bit. He just flat out forgot the words. I thought he was gonna keep going and pick up the words further on down in the song but no, the band vamped and he circled back around and re-sang "woke up got outta bed..." all over again. Kudos to the band for hangin with him to see how he was going to handle the flub and kudos also to neil for trying to get it right. It occurred to me that the song itself is probably a lot more difficult to play than it would seem. The fact that beatles and especially george martin were able to craft it so seamlessly just further underscores their collective genius. Getting back to Neil young's show last night, all-in-all I thought it was a great and varied performance.
I'm just bustin'. Another highlight at MSG was the Page/Plant gig. We were over the hills and far away, but that was an epic gig. I remember Super Dave being especially pleased.
I did a search, and NY has been playing an almost identical set list this whole tour. That was a little depressing.
Hi, nice writeup. FYI, the "Heart of Gold" I put up on YouTube was from the night before. For Night 2, I recorded "Cinnamon Girl" and "Needle & the Damage Done."
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