Albums by this artist

Live At Massey Hall (Recommended) (2007)

Zuma (Recommended) (1975)

On The Beach (Recommended) (1974)

Harvest Moon (2000)

Neil Young

Live At Massey Hall

» BEN FRENCH | CO-DIRECTOR

NATN Recommended

Neil Young

Live At Massey Hall

Reprise, 2007

RiYL: Bruce Springsteen's Tracks, Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series

A cloud of mystery surrounds Neil Young and his hypothetical Archives, the long-promised career-summing collection of all the artist’s songs. Every couple of years for the last 20 years, Neil has promised that the Archives are almost ready for release and then never put a damn thing out. Along the way, he’s hardly described the thing, except to say it’s going to be really big and include lots of unreleased stuff. The question of what Neil Young might have in his basement and what he might deem worthy of release seems unanswerable. One just doesn’t know what to expect, especially when you hear him says things like, “It will probably be 36 CDs long.” I mean, this is the man felt it necessary to release two versions of Living With War but still hasn’t put Time Fades Away out on CD.

With the release of Live at the Fillmore East last fall and Live at Massey Hall this week, Neil has finally started to pull back the curtain… albeit very slowly. According to a press release for Massey Hall, the 8-CD Neil Young Archives Volume 1, covering 1963 to 1972, will be released this fall, and include these two concerts. There’s no track list available yet for the set, so we can still only speculate what’s on those other six CDs, and of course there’s no scheduled release dates for subsequent volumes (not even years).

This would all be incredibly annoying if it weren’t for the pure joy these two live albums provide. Granted, Live at the Fillmore East felt a little underwhelming on its initial release – maybe because it wasn’t even a complete show – but it’s proven to be a serious listen: Six songs of Neil and Crazy Horse in all their early-era, classic-rock, 15-minute-jams-are-just-fine-thanks glory, with hardly any downtime other than a band introduction. Listen to Fillmore’s epic “Cowgirl In The Sand” too closely or too loudly and you will find yourself curled in the corner of your living room, hugging a vinyl copy of Everybody Knows This Nowhere, trembling madly with tears of joy streaming down your cheek.

Besides “Cowgirl” and its other sonic glories, Fillmore East also sets the stage perfectly for Live at Massey Hall. Whereas the Fillmore shows of February 1970 encapsulated the ragged, jammy glory of Young and Crazy Horse before Danny Whitten’s passing, this solo set from January 1971 showcases a singer-songwriter at his creative peak. And while Fillmore is a great listen, Massey Hall is a revelation.

According to press release, longtime Neil producer David Briggs was “adamant” that this show be released that year (which would have made it the follow-up to After The Goldrush) but Neil decided to sit on it and put out Harvest the following year instead. Given the quality of this performance, it’s tempting to say that was a bad decision, but who really knows. More than half the material here was unreleased at the time of the performance – including six songs from Harvest – and it listens now like a “best of” collection that never saw the light of day. One can only imagine how proud his Canadian countrymen must have felt as Young unveiled soon-to-be-classic-rock staples like “Old Man,” “The Needle and the Damage Done,” and “Heart of Gold,” alongside already popular tunes such as “Helpless,” “Ohio,” and “Down By The River.”

Listing off these well-worn greatest hits doesn’t really do the album justice because the performances here are startling in their newness. In contrast to the Fillmore concerts or the albums of this period, this record is a true showcase for Neil’s voice, which soars from start to finish and revitalizes well-worn hits like “Old Man” and “Helpless.”

Best of all are Neil’s turn on piano. “Journey Through the Past” resonates perfectly with the Toronto crowd, “Love in Mind” is even more glorious, but it’s “A Man Needs A Maid” that steals the show. Introduced as a “show tune for my movie,” the song unfolds with incredible precision, with Neil toggling effortlessly between the delicate piano playing of the verses and the thunderous banging of the chorus. He ends the song with a short “Heart of Gold” interlude and turns the whole thing into a one-man suite – a folksy answer to Abbey Road’s second side.

Harvest’s “There’s A World” is still a dud and I can do without “Dance Dance Dance,” but the rest of this show is pretty impeccable, sprinkled with the songwriter’s best laid back tunes from this five-year window. “Tell Me Why,” “Don’t Let It Bring You Down,” “See The Sky About To Rain,” and “Bad Fog of Loneliness” are all very welcome listens, especially the last one, since it’s previously unreleased.

According to his label, Neil has another 30+ unreleased songs that will see the light of day with the box set’s release this fall. I can’t help but be skeptical of the news, but the Fillmore and Massey albums given us cause for hope. Taken together, the records exceed my expectations for the project and widen the odds that Neil’s got other treasures in his basement that we will one day hear. And if those future releases are half as good as Massey, I will be a very happy camper.

BEN FRENCH | Ben founded NATN in the winter of 1998-1999 with fellow IU alums Troy Carpenter and Jonathan Cohen. During the day time, he's working for Nielsen Business Media, publisher of Billboard. Ben's favorite acts include Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys.