The who showed up at on Thursday night was not entirely different from the Neil Young of the previous night: a classic folk-rock lifer whose energy and activism built as the night grew darker.
But there were subtle differences between Night 2 of his Red Rocks stand and Night 1 (), including a blistering and crowd-pleasing “Down By the River” that found Young engaging in some of his famous guitar-torturing, or the fact that the omnipresent rain seemed to cut everything short by a song or two.
Photos and review of Neil Young’s first night at Red Rocks.
Young is touring behind his latest album, and once the nearly three-hour show got going, that word — and Young’s not-so-subtle, environmentalist, pro-farmer messages — grew more frequent. The new songs are pleasant enough, if rudimentary compared to his best work, but only diehard fans are likely to remember “Big Box” or “A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop” as highlights of the otherwise .
After an emotive from openers Band of Horses, a pair of women in straw hats and cowboy boots appeared, both lit by spotlights, spreading feed (or seed?) across the stage. Young took the stage solo and without a word launched into arguably the most affecting run of the night, playing “After the Gold Rush,” “Heart of Gold,” “Long May You Run” (a Stills–Young Band song) and “Old Man,” accompanied only by his beat-up acoustic guitar and deft harmonica playing. The lyrics resonated in the (still-dry, at that point) air, blending meaningfully with the scenery — as everything has a way of doing at the majestic Red Rocks.
Young played a richly-toned, vintage pipe organ on “Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)” before a crew in identical white hazmat suits invaded the simply-adorned stage, theatrically spraying fog as a quick set-up change heralded Young’s backing band, Promise of the Real (which includes a pair of Willie Nelson’s sons). From there the energy and noise (and rain) only built, starting with slow-burn numbers like “Hold Back the Tears” and “Out on the Weekend,” and finding natural rhythm by the time a lovely “Harvest Moon” serenaded the wet crowd.
It was hard not to feel for the sextet of manual spotlight operators suspended several dozen feet above the stage, who not only couldn’t move for three-plus hours, but who absorbed every drop of wind-cooled rain without cover during the show. Also: what was with the goatee’d bongo player, clad in a colorful “Aloha” shirt? His contributions were either musically out of place (matching the way he looked most of the night) or utterly inaudible on the louder numbers. Four tractor trailers sat in the parking lot, seemingly disconnected from the fact that there was no stage setup to speak of. Perhaps they contained a stunning variety of the bongo player’s his utterly irrelevant instruments.
A late-set “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” gave Young another chance to show of his righteous sledgehammer guitar playing. It’s less lacerating and heavier than in years past, but it’s the man talking from his soul, and even the bludgeoning of it felt freeing and joyous. The single-song encore of “I Don’t Know” (and not, sadly, “Rockin’ in the Free World”) closed out the night for the 69-year-old legend, whose purposeful mind and performance prowess remain as timely as ever.
