TESTURE

i don't wanna sound like a total fucking loser here, but i have some serious mixed feelings about the neil young and crazy horse concert i went to last sunday night. if i can say anything for sure about it it's that i haven't stopped thinking about it since. i am a fan, obviously, and knew going into the concert that a. neil young and crazy horse had just put out a new record and were touring in support of it and b. crazy horse jams it out live. that being said, i guess i just assumed that neil would be playing a few new songs and then doing a greatest hits set of all the songs i love and wanted to hear. well, the set was pretty heavy on new material and frankly, i wasn't feeling it. don't get me wrong, neil's guitar playing was completely insane, his voice was perfect and the band did exactly what they do best, but... the new songs felt weak to me. and unfortunately kind of cheesy. and they jammed them out FOREVER. can i blame neil for being a creative and amazing musician well into his sixties and wanting to showcase new material rather than just "trotting out the hits"? nope. not at all. the problem with the concert was me and my expectations, for sure. truthfully, i don't really know anything off any album after sleeps with angels and he's released probably 15 albums since then. the classic songs were for the most part absolutely incredible, jammy, but that's to be expected. songs like powderfinger, cinnamon girl, mr. soul and my my, hey hey (into the black) were absolutely mind-blowing to me. and i seriously almost shit my pants when the band went into perhaps my all-time favorite (and most self-relatable) crazy horse song fuckin' up. but then they went and jammed it out in the longest, weirdest and most goofball way imaginable, turning it into a bloated grunting viagra sex-fart. i dunno. but after everything, i didn't leave feeling disappointed. i left feeling stoked that a guy like neil young can pack out a huge fucking stadium and do exactly what he wants to do as a creative musician and not have it seem like a "fuck you" to his fans (like me) who just wanted to hear like a hurricane. the whole thing was simultaneously punk as fuck and as completely unpunk as possible. and i respect that, god damn it! plus it was his birthday and getting to sing happy birthday to neil young with fifteen thousand people was pretty special.