Yours truly made a rock and roll road trip to Winnipeg, Canada to catch two concerts with Neil Young and Crazy Horse. The shows were originally placed on sale and advertised as “solo” performances as part of Mr. Young’s theatre stops but then to a Crazy Horse gig. Neil gave us the best of both worlds by doing solo acoustic sets before bringing his “friends” onstage. The beauty of these short bursts of touring is that the setlists vary from show to show. The Burton Cummings Theatre and Centennial Concert Hall were the two completely different venues in Winnipeg for the return of Crazy Horse. The Burton Cummings Theatre was first and the old structure seemed appropriate for the opening night of Neil Young’s return home. It felt like a reunion with old friends as Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina handled the bass and drums. Frank Sampedro is still missing in action since the injury he sustained a few years back causing Young and Crazy to cut short a tour that would have brought them to the Capital Theatre in Westchester at the time. Nils Lofgren stepped in for dates in California last year, and with his long history with Neil Young including the “After the Goldrush” album, and Bruce Springsteen recovering from a long solo stint on Broadway, multi-instrumentalist Nils Lofgren was the perfect person to help piece the Horse back together again. As luck would have it very early this morning I ran into Mr. Lofgren at the Winnipeg airport where we were both separately having breakfast. I told Nils he really rocked that “Like a Hurricane” organ; Nils said it was a lot of fun and that he nearly knocked Billy over a couple of times. It was a great three day adventure on the frigid streets of Winnipeg. As Nils, a real gentleman and seemingly nice guy, said to me, hopefully there is more to come.
Last night’s show at the Centennial Concert Hall is playing on the Neil Young Archives website now!
Don’t Spook the Horse
Rock on
GQ
